Flowering and Fruiting Patterns of Woody Species in the Tropical Montane Evergreen Forest of Southern India

Mohandass, D.; Hughes, Alice C.; Davidar, Priya

doi:10.18520/cs/v111/i2/404-416

Cited by 8 publications

(7 citation statements)

References 50 publications

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“…PATTERNS of reproductive phenology in tropical forest plant species are correlated with a number of abiotic and biotic factors [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9] . Many studies show that reproductive phenology (flowering and fruiting) is associated with rainfall, temperature, day-length, radiation levels and photoperiod in both seasonal and aseasonal tropical rainforests throughout the world [10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21] .…”

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confidence: 99%

Flowering and Fruiting Phenology of Woody Trees in the Tropical-Seasonal Rainforest, Southwestern China

Mohandass¹,

Campbell²,

Chen³

et al. 2018

Current Science

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The reproductive phenology of tropical plants is potentially driven by a number of abiotic and biotic factors. However, it is still unclear as to which climatic factors and biotic interactions drive the reproductive phenology of woody trees in the tropical seasonal rainforest of Xishuangbanna region in Southwest China. We conducted observations on woody plants (including trees and shrubs) phenology between November 2004 and October 2007 at biweekly intervals in the one hectare permanent plot of tropical seasonal rainforest in Southwest China. A total of 357 individuals of 76 species (70 genera, 37 families), comprising of 59 (78%) woody trees and 17 (22%) shrub species were observed. Our results demonstrate that flowering and fruiting frequencies show slight temporal variation between years. Flowering was significantly correlated with day-length, temperature and rainfall and fruiting was significantly correlated with rainfall and temperature. This finding indicates that woody tree reproductive phenology was primarily associated with temperature and rainfall and to a lesser extent with day-length. Reproductive phenology is also linked to seasonal patterns with flowering peaking in the late dry season and fruiting peaking in the late wet season. Moreover, reproductive phenology is also significantly associated with reproductive ecological guilds such as pollination types and dispersal modes. Community reproductive phenology is associated with climatic seasonality and biotic interactions. It also suggests that seasonal phenology patterns may play a fundamental role in community reproductive success in the tropical seasonal rainforest of Xishuangbanna region of Southwest China.

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confidence: 99%

Flowering and Fruiting Phenology of Woody Trees in the Tropical-Seasonal Rainforest, Southwestern China

Mohandass¹,

Campbell²,

Chen³

et al. 2018

Current Science

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“…The short duration of fruiting is advantageous for the plant to mature fruits during the rainy season due to the availability of highest precipitation. This flowering and fruiting duration does not agree with the reports on the same in the tropical montane evergreen forest of southern India (Mohandass et al 2016). Further, the duration of these two phenophases appears to be influenced by the changes in day length, temperature, sunshine hours, and precipitation associated with the season (Bawa et al 2003).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 67%

<b>Vegetative and reproductive phenology of <I>Aquilaria malaccensis</I> Lam. (Agarwood) in Cachar District, Assam, India</b>

2018

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“…Alternatively, flowering phenology is both under genetic control and is plastic to environment, that means changes in climatic conditions may trigger the expression of phenotypic responses currently hidden [29]. Different geographic locations comprise their own edaphic and climatic conditions such as soil nutrients (level of N in soil), variation in rainfall, changes in atmospheric temperature, photoperiod, irradiance and sporadic environmental events that serve to provide environmental cues in triggering floral phenological events in tropical plants [30,31,32,33,34,35,36,37,38,39,40,41,42]. Newstrom et al, 1994 [43], and Engel et al, 2005 [44], have described four levels of flowering frequency: continual species that continuously flower throughout the year, episodic species that flower more than once a year, annual species that flower once a year, and supra-annual species that flower less frequently than once a year.…”

Section: Diversities In Flowering Fruiting Phenophases In Natural Popmentioning

confidence: 99%

Exploratory Studies on Occurrence and Potential Benefits of High Fruit Yielding Reproductive Phenophasic Variants of Pithecellobium dulce in Augmenting Fruit Based Semi-arid Agro Forestry Systems

Narayan

2019

EJMP

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Background: Pithecellobium dulce is a multipurpose legume tree species of high ecological significance. Several reports indicate existence of huge genetic diversity within the natural population of the species. Various morphological parameters have been used to assess intra species genetic diversity, however, there is no report available so far on diversities in reproductive phenology of P. dulce of semi-arid or arid climate. Methods: The present paper is based on assessment of diversity in flowering phenophases through construction of phenological calendar incorporating temporally observable morpho-phenotypic descriptors for reproductive behaviour of individual trees comprising natural population of the species at designated study sites during a period of three years. The study was carried out during September, 2015 and March, 2019 at Ajmer, Rajasthan, India. Data were periodically obtained and statistically analyzed. Results: Majority of trees of flowering stage (89.94%) exhibited normal or winter blooms in which flowering was initiated in almost synchronized manner during December; 10.05% of normal blooming trees inconsistently showed additional early or autumn blooms during either September or October or November; 2.58% of trees exhibited early blooms in which flowering was consistently initiated in the month of September in addition to normal blooms. The overall production and availability of fresh fruits in early-cum-normal episodic blooming trees were greater as compared to only normal blooming trees. Though, the numerical fruit productivity in winter blooms was superior to autumn, the pomometric characteristics were inferior in former in early-cum-normal episodic blooming trees. Conclusion: The methodology is a novel experimental approach to assess diversities in reproductive phenology of seed raised population of high value fruit bearing economically important tree species. The present work explores agronomically valuable variants of P. dulce and also reports causes of appearance of persistent fruits and sporadic in-situ germination of seeds. Based on above findings, the paper also makes evolutionary predictions that how a shift in flowering phenology of P. dulce as exhibited by the elite variants could have long-term implications for reshaping of future landscapes of semi-arid or arid climate. Conclusively, Winter to autumn phenophasic shift in flowering in P. dulce is economically productive, evolutionarily progressive, and environmentally well cued partial retrieval under semi-arid conditions. Moreover, the phenophasic variants could serve as candidate plus trees that deserve out of the season floral management and clonal propagation, thereby the species may get a fillip to status up gradation from minor fruits to major fruit category.

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Flowering and Fruiting Patterns of Woody Species in the Tropical Montane Evergreen Forest of Southern India

Cited by 8 publications

References 50 publications

Flowering and Fruiting Phenology of Woody Trees in the Tropical-Seasonal Rainforest, Southwestern China

Flowering and Fruiting Phenology of Woody Trees in the Tropical-Seasonal Rainforest, Southwestern China

<b>Vegetative and reproductive phenology of <I>Aquilaria malaccensis</I> Lam. (Agarwood) in Cachar District, Assam, India</b>

Exploratory Studies on Occurrence and Potential Benefits of High Fruit Yielding Reproductive Phenophasic Variants of Pithecellobium dulce in Augmenting Fruit Based Semi-arid Agro Forestry Systems

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