Full Text Available
Note: Clicking the button above will open the full text document at the original institutional repository in a new window.
Can and do Ericas self pollinate?
Within the Cape Floristic Region many lineages are characterised by large floral diversity. The genus Erica is one of these lineages, making up -7% of the CFR. Surprisingly, even though pollinators have been suggested to be a driving force of floral morphology, the role of pollinators in the floral...
Saved in:
| Main Author: | |
|---|---|
| Other Authors: | |
| Format: | Thesis |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Department of Biological Sciences
2017
|
| Subjects: | |
| Tags: |
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
|
| _version_ | 1867613164285198336 |
|---|---|
| access_status_str | Open Access |
| author | Arendse, Brittany |
| author2 | Van der Niet, Timotheus |
| author_browse | Arendse, Brittany Van der Niet, Timotheus |
| author_facet | Van der Niet, Timotheus Arendse, Brittany |
| author_sort | Arendse, Brittany |
| collection | Thesis |
| description | Within the Cape Floristic Region many lineages are characterised by large floral diversity. The genus Erica is one of these lineages, making up -7% of the CFR. Surprisingly, even though pollinators have been suggested to be a driving force of floral morphology, the role of pollinators in the floral diversification and speciation of this genus is not yet well understood. Therefore the aim of this paper was to establish if Erica species can and do self-pollinate. Two Erica species, E. plukenetii and E. urnaviridis, were obtained from Kirstenbosch nursery, where hand-pollinations were performed on 15-20 flowers of each of three treatments (self-pollination, crosspollination and autogamous self-pollination. Additionally pollen tube analyses were performed on seven Erica species, which were collected from the Constantia Mountain. In E. plukenetii, self-incompatibility seems to be the predominant breeding system. It appears that, like E. urna-viridis, most of the other species analysed, via pollen tube analyses, have the potential to self-pollinate. However, more experiments are required to establish if these species are truly self-compatible. Autogamy, on the other hand, does not appear to set seed in the species studied. Therefore it would be fair to say that some ericas can self-pollinate but none actually do self-pollinate. These results indicate that ericas have a strong dependence on pollinators for seed set and in the past speciation may have occurred due to adaptation to different pollinators, when opllinators were scarce. |
| format | Thesis |
| id | oai:open.uct.ac.za:11427/24396 |
| institution | University of Cape Town (South Africa) |
| language | eng |
| last_indexed | 2026-06-10T12:31:47.142Z |
| license_str | Not specified — see source repository |
| provenance_str_mv | Harvested via OAI-PMH from UCTD — University of Cape Town Open Access Repository |
| publishDate | 2017 |
| publishDateRange | 2017 |
| publishDateSort | 2017 |
| publisher | Department of Biological Sciences |
| publisherStr | Department of Biological Sciences |
| record_format | dspace |
| source_str | UCTD — University of Cape Town Open Access Repository |
| spelling | oai:open.uct.ac.za:11427/24396 Can and do Ericas self pollinate? Arendse, Brittany Van der Niet, Timotheus Midgley, Jeremy J Botany Within the Cape Floristic Region many lineages are characterised by large floral diversity. The genus Erica is one of these lineages, making up -7% of the CFR. Surprisingly, even though pollinators have been suggested to be a driving force of floral morphology, the role of pollinators in the floral diversification and speciation of this genus is not yet well understood. Therefore the aim of this paper was to establish if Erica species can and do self-pollinate. Two Erica species, E. plukenetii and E. urnaviridis, were obtained from Kirstenbosch nursery, where hand-pollinations were performed on 15-20 flowers of each of three treatments (self-pollination, crosspollination and autogamous self-pollination. Additionally pollen tube analyses were performed on seven Erica species, which were collected from the Constantia Mountain. In E. plukenetii, self-incompatibility seems to be the predominant breeding system. It appears that, like E. urna-viridis, most of the other species analysed, via pollen tube analyses, have the potential to self-pollinate. However, more experiments are required to establish if these species are truly self-compatible. Autogamy, on the other hand, does not appear to set seed in the species studied. Therefore it would be fair to say that some ericas can self-pollinate but none actually do self-pollinate. These results indicate that ericas have a strong dependence on pollinators for seed set and in the past speciation may have occurred due to adaptation to different pollinators, when opllinators were scarce. 2017-05-24T07:08:51Z 2017-05-24T07:08:51Z 2011 Bachelor Thesis Honours BSc (Hons.) http://hdl.handle.net/11427/24396 eng application/pdf Department of Biological Sciences Faculty of Science University of Cape Town |
| spellingShingle | Botany Arendse, Brittany Can and do Ericas self pollinate? |
| thesis_degree_str | Bachelor's / Honours |
| title | Can and do Ericas self pollinate? |
| title_full | Can and do Ericas self pollinate? |
| title_fullStr | Can and do Ericas self pollinate? |
| title_full_unstemmed | Can and do Ericas self pollinate? |
| title_short | Can and do Ericas self pollinate? |
| title_sort | can and do ericas self pollinate |
| topic | Botany |
| url | http://hdl.handle.net/11427/24396 |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT arendsebrittany cananddoericasselfpollinate |