Pollen discounting in Erythronium grandiflorum: mass-action estimates from pollen transfer dynamics
Abstract
Pollen discounting, a reduction in success as an outcross pollen parent as a result of selfing, can reduce or eliminate the reproductive advantage commonly attributed to selfing. Previous estimates of pollen discounting have been based on segregation analysis of progeny from open-pollinated plants. Using data from Erythronium grandiflorum, we illustrate how direct measures of pollen transfer can be used to estimate discounting rates, and we discuss the relationship between absolute discounting rates measured in this way and relative discounting rates measured through segregation analysis. Only about 0.4% of the pollen removed from anthers in E. grandiflorum is used in selfing, and only a little more (0.5%) is delivered to the stigmas of other plants. Using these estimates in the framework of a mass-action model suggests that the success rate of self-pollen is almost 80 times that of outcross pollen. Thus, variants increasing the discounting rate would appear to have a substantial reproductive advantage in E. grandiflorum. Pollen discounting cannot explain the maintenance of an outcrossed mating system in E. grandiflorum, and it may also fail in other plants in which a large proportion of the pollen produced never reaches a receptive stigma.
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