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Reproductive Ecology of Bird-pollinated Babiana (Iridaceae): Floral Variation, Mating Patterns and Genetic Diversity

Flowering plants possess striking variation in reproductive traits and mating patterns, even among closely related species. In this thesis, I investigate morphological variation, mating and genetic diversity of five taxa of bird-pollinated Babiana (Iridaceae), including two species with specialized bird perches. Field observations in 12 populations demonstrated that sunbirds were the primary pollinators. Babiana ringens exhibited correlated geographic variation in flower and perch size. Controlled field pollinations revealed self-compatibility and low pollen limitation in B. ringens subspecies, and self-incompatibility and chronic pollen limitation in B. hirsuta. Allozyme markers demonstrated moderate to high selfing rates among populations and considerable variation in levels of genetic diversity. In B. ringens there was a positive relation between the geographic and genetic distance of populations. The results of a manipulative field experiment indicated position-dependent herbivory on inflorescences of B. hirsuta and this could play a role in the evolution of specialized bird perches in Babiana.

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:TORONTO/oai:tspace.library.utoronto.ca:1807/25549
Date31 December 2010
CreatorsDe Waal, Caroli
ContributorsBarrett, Spencer C. H.
Source SetsUniversity of Toronto
Languageen_ca
Detected LanguageEnglish
TypeThesis

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