Drought and temperature stresses impact pollen production and autonomous selfing in a California wildflower, Collinsia heterophylla

Abstract

Ongoing climatic changes have altered growing conditions for plants by limiting water availability and inducing unprecedented temperature increases, eliciting plant functional responses that compromise floral trait expression, reduce pollen production and promote early self-pollination. In a controlled greenhouse study, plants of Collinsia heterophylla, an annual mixed-mated hermaphrodite, were grown under temperature and water stresses. Floral trait responses and related effects on plant reproductive success were recorded. Plants grown under temperature and water stresses were shorter and had fewer leaves at flowering than control plants. Temperature-stressed plants flowered earlier and had smaller flowers that produced fewer per capita pollen grains than control and water-stressed plants. While lifetime flower production in plants experiencing temperature stress alone or water stress alone was similar to control plants, those receiving combined temperature and water stresses had significantly lower lifetime flower production. Abiotic stress did not affect investment in female traits such as ovule number per flower, but impacted male traits seen as fewer pollen grains per flower. In plants experiencing abiotic stress, an increase in autonomous self-pollination was facilitated through a compromise in herkogamy, a sexual interference mechanism that promotes cross-pollination. Spatial separation between stigma and anther, a measure of herkogamy was zero or negative in stressed plants. Thus, abiotic stress responses in plants did not compromise plant reproductive success as autonomous selfing was augmented. In nature, such responses will likely reduce available nutrition for pollinators through decreased flower and pollen production.

Poor Air Quality Is Linked to Stress in Honeybees and Can Be Compounded by the Presence of Disease

“…The role of these proteins could become more critical as predicted temperature extremes become a reality in the future. While it is likely that ample pollen stores, as in our study hives, may facilitate an increase in the expression of HSP70 gene expression, temperature stress, when combined with drought, may reduce pollen production in plants, thus limiting pollen availability for foraging bees [ 52 , 53 ]. Thus, the supplemental feeding of colonies could become critical for bees to retain their ability to combat abiotic stressors with appropriate responses at the physiological level, and this adds costs to hive management and increases the risks of hive losses.…”

Estimation of Processing Times and Economic Feasibility to Produce Moringa Oleifera Lam. Capsules in Mexico.

“…On the other hand, simulation in customer service systems, the flow of customers in a service system has been analyzed [12,13] as well as evaluating staffing strategies [14][15][16] waiting times [17,18] and resource distribution to optimize customer satisfaction [19,20] as well as in logistics systems [21,22]. Another area widely studied with simulation is vehicle flow systems in a transportation network [23][24][25] modeling traffic and intersections [26][27][28][29][30][31], and modeling public transportation systems [32][33][34][35][36], as well as health systems [37,38].…”