RESEARCH ARTICLE
Pollen Dispersal in Fragmented Populations of the Dioecious Wind-Pollinated Tree, Allocasuarina verticillata (Drooping Sheoak, Drooping She-Oak; Allocasuarinaceae) Linda Broadhurst* Centre for Australian National Biodiversity Research, National Research Collections, CSIRO, Canberra, Australia * [email protected]
Abstract OPEN ACCESS Citation: Broadhurst L (2015) Pollen Dispersal in Fragmented Populations of the Dioecious WindPollinated Tree, Allocasuarina verticillata (Drooping Sheoak, Drooping She-Oak; Allocasuarinaceae). PLoS ONE 10(3): e0119498. doi:10.1371/journal. pone.0119498 Academic Editor: Paul Adam, University of New South Wales, AUSTRALIA Received: October 10, 2014 Accepted: January 21, 2015 Published: March 5, 2015 Copyright: © 2015 Linda Broadhurst. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. Data Availability Statement: Data are available from the Dryad Digital Repository, under the DOI 10.5061/ dryad.td161.
Vegetation clearing, land modification and agricultural intensification have impacted on many ecological communities around the world. Understanding how species respond to fragmentation and the scales over which functionality is retained, can be critical for managing biodiversity in agricultural landscapes. Allocasuarina verticillata (drooping sheoak, drooping she-oak) is a dioecious, wind-pollinated and -dispersed species with key conservation values across southeastern Australia. But vegetation clearing associated with agricultural expansion has reduced the abundance and spatial distribution of this species in many regions. Spatial genetic structure, relatedness among trees, pollen dispersal and mating patterns were examined in fragmented A. verticillata populations selected to represent the types of remnants that now characterise this species. Short scale spatial genetic structure (5–25 m) and relatedness among trees were observed in most populations. Unexpectedly, the two male trees closest to each female did not have a reproductive advantage accounting for only 4–15% of the seed produced in larger populations. Biparental inbreeding was also generally low (
Pollen Dispersal in Fragmented Populations of the Dioecious Wind-Pollinated Tree, Allocasuarina verticillata (Drooping Sheoak, Drooping She-Oak; Allocasuarinaceae) Linda Broadhurst* Centre for Australian National Biodiversity Research, National Research Collections, CSIRO, Canberra, Australia * [email protected]
Abstract OPEN ACCESS Citation: Broadhurst L (2015) Pollen Dispersal in Fragmented Populations of the Dioecious WindPollinated Tree, Allocasuarina verticillata (Drooping Sheoak, Drooping She-Oak; Allocasuarinaceae). PLoS ONE 10(3): e0119498. doi:10.1371/journal. pone.0119498 Academic Editor: Paul Adam, University of New South Wales, AUSTRALIA Received: October 10, 2014 Accepted: January 21, 2015 Published: March 5, 2015 Copyright: © 2015 Linda Broadhurst. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. Data Availability Statement: Data are available from the Dryad Digital Repository, under the DOI 10.5061/ dryad.td161.
Vegetation clearing, land modification and agricultural intensification have impacted on many ecological communities around the world. Understanding how species respond to fragmentation and the scales over which functionality is retained, can be critical for managing biodiversity in agricultural landscapes. Allocasuarina verticillata (drooping sheoak, drooping she-oak) is a dioecious, wind-pollinated and -dispersed species with key conservation values across southeastern Australia. But vegetation clearing associated with agricultural expansion has reduced the abundance and spatial distribution of this species in many regions. Spatial genetic structure, relatedness among trees, pollen dispersal and mating patterns were examined in fragmented A. verticillata populations selected to represent the types of remnants that now characterise this species. Short scale spatial genetic structure (5–25 m) and relatedness among trees were observed in most populations. Unexpectedly, the two male trees closest to each female did not have a reproductive advantage accounting for only 4–15% of the seed produced in larger populations. Biparental inbreeding was also generally low (
