Post-floral Erection of Stalks Provides Insight into the Evolution of Fruit Orientation and Its Effects on Seed Dispersal

CORC > 昆明植物研究所 > 中国科学院昆明植物研究所 > 中国科学院东亚植物多样性与生物地理学重点实验室

	Post-floral Erection of Stalks Provides Insight into the Evolution of Fruit Orientation and Its Effects on Seed Dispersal
	Niu, Yang; Zhou, Zhuo; Sha, Wen; Sun, Hang
刊名	SCIENTIFIC REPORTS
	2016-02-02
卷号	6
英文摘要	That stalks reorient after flowering to face upwards is a common phenomenon in many flowering plants, indicating the potential importance of fruit orientation on seed dispersal. But this idea has not been subject to an empirical test. We examined this hypothesis by analysing the evolutionary correlation between fruit orientation and other characters and by investigating the effects of fruit orientation on seed dispersal. We found that 1) in a sub-alpine plant community, upward fruit orientation strongly correlates with fruits that act as seed containers, which are often of dry type and are dispersed by non-animal vectors; 2) as exemplified by the Campanulaceae s. str., fruit orientation strongly correlates with dehiscence position. Upwardly-oriented capsules dehisce at the apex, whereas pendent ones dehisce at the base, in both cases ensuring that seeds are released from an upright position; 3) in manipulation experiments on Silene chungtienensis, upward fruits (the natural state) exhibit much greater dispersal distances and more dispersive pattern than pendent ones, and have a more even distribution of dispersal direction than horizontal ones. Our results suggest that fruit orientation may have important function in seed dispersal, which may be the reason why the phenomenon that stalk erection after flowering occurs widely.
类目[WOS]	Multidisciplinary Sciences
研究领域[WOS]	Science & Technology - Other Topics
关键词[WOS]	CORRELATED EVOLUTION ; DISCRETE CHARACTERS ; FLESHY FRUITS ; MIXED MODELS ; R PACKAGE ; CAMPANULACEAE ; DISTANCE ; POLLEN ; PLANTS ; ANGIOSPERMS
收录类别	SCI
语种	英语
WOS记录号	WOS:000369139100001
内容类型	期刊论文
源URL	[http://ir.kib.ac.cn/handle/151853/25944]
专题	昆明植物研究所_中国科学院东亚植物多样性与生物地理学重点实验室
作者单位	Chinese Acad Sci, Key Lab Plant Div & Biogeog East Asia, Kunming Inst Bot, 132 Lanhei Rd, Kunming 650201, Yunnan, Peoples R China
推荐引用方式 GB/T 7714	Niu, Yang,Zhou, Zhuo,Sha, Wen,et al. Post-floral Erection of Stalks Provides Insight into the Evolution of Fruit Orientation and Its Effects on Seed Dispersal[J]. SCIENTIFIC REPORTS,2016,6.
APA	Niu, Yang,Zhou, Zhuo,Sha, Wen,&Sun, Hang.(2016).Post-floral Erection of Stalks Provides Insight into the Evolution of Fruit Orientation and Its Effects on Seed Dispersal.SCIENTIFIC REPORTS,6.
MLA	Niu, Yang,et al."Post-floral Erection of Stalks Provides Insight into the Evolution of Fruit Orientation and Its Effects on Seed Dispersal".SCIENTIFIC REPORTS 6(2016).