Pollen Competition in Wild Radish: Effects of Variation in Pollen Load Size and Composition on Seed Paternity and Progeny Growth

University Of New Mexico, Albuquerque NM

Investigators

Abstract

9981796 Marshall During pollination, more pollen grains typically arrive at flowers than are necessary to fertilize all of the seeds. This provides an opportunity for differential success of pollen from different plants. Although this process might affect the success of plants during mating and thus select for particular characteristics, it has been difficult to resolve whether it is important in natural populations. By studying both differential seed siring ability and differential offspring performance of pollen donors in experiments that vary both the size and composition of pollen loads on wild radish, Marshall and her students will directly address this problem. Generally speaking, understanding of the factors that control plant mating success is important because these factors control whether inbreeding occurs, whether some plants are more successful than others, and whether speciation occurs. The specific case of differential success among pollen donors is important because this has been suggested as a tool for faster breeding of desirable traits into crop species. Addressing whether success during mating is always correlated with success during growth is essential to predicting the utility of this method of plant breeding. This experiment also has educational benefits as Marshall will continue to involve significant numbers of undergraduate and graduate students in the research. A high proportion of these students have been women and minorities.