Data from: Divergence in style length and pollen size leads to a postmating-prezygotic reproductive barrier among populations of Silene latifolia
A central tenet of speciation research is the need to identify reproductive isolating barriers. One approach to this line of research is to identify the phenotypes that lead to reproductive isolation. Several studies on flowering plants have shown that differences in style length contribute to repro...
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Zusammenfassung: | A central tenet of speciation research is the need to identify
reproductive isolating barriers. One approach to this line of research is
to identify the phenotypes that lead to reproductive isolation. Several
studies on flowering plants have shown that differences in style length
contribute to reproductive isolation between species, leading us to
consider whether style length could act as a reproductive barrier among
populations of a single species. This could occur if style length varied
sufficiently and pollen size covaried with style length. Populations of
Silene latifolia exhibit variation in flower size, including style length,
that is negatively correlated with annual precipitation. We show that this
divergence in style length has a genetic basis and acts as a reproductive
barrier: males from small-flowered populations produced relatively small
pollen grains that were poor at fertilizing ovules when crossed to females
from large-flowered populations, leading to a significant reduction in
seed production. Manipulating the distance pollen tubes had to travel
revealed that this failure was purely mechanical and not the result of
other incompatibilities. These results show that style length acts as a
postmating-prezygotic reproductive barrier and indicate a potential link
between ecotypic differentiation and reproductive isolation within a
species. |
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DOI: | 10.5061/dryad.0f8j8 |