Mammal‐mediated seed dispersal in <i>Vanilla</i>: Its rewards and clues to the evolution of fleshy fruits in orchids

Pansarin, Emerson Ricardo; Suetsugu, Kenji

doi:10.1002/ecy.3701

Cited by 6 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 22 publications

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“…These results not only make vanilla sowing significantly more efficient, but also support the hypothesis that vanilla seeds are adapted for endozoochory. It seems that V. planifolia seeds are dispersed by birds (Pansarin 2021 ) nevertheless a role of mammals is also possible as these fruits are highly aromatic (Pansarin and Suetsugu 2022 ). The HCl solutions are frequently used to mimic conditions in the animal digestive tract and to broke impermeable coats of endozoochorous seeds (e.g., Venier et al 2012 ; Kleyheeg et al 2018 ; Jaganathan et al 2019 ) and it likely acts the same way with our seeds.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In our experiments, the HCl solutions simulating digestive tract of animals induce germination even more than the conventionally used alkaline and strongly oxidative hypochlorite solution. Taking into account the adaptation of Vanilla seeds for endozoochory (Pansarin 2021 ; Yeh et al 2021 ; Pansarin and Suetsugu 2022 ), it could likely be expected that the increased permeability of the seed coats is the cause of the increased germination. The dormancy in orchid seeds has been generally classified as morphological or morphophysiological (Baskin and Baskin 2021 ).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…One of such difficult orchids is the genus Vanilla, including horticulturally important species like V. planifolia. This genus is quite different from other artificially cultivated orchids in its evolutionary isolation (it is a member of a relatively small subfamily Vanilloideae) and in its endozoochorous seed dispersal (Soto Arenas and Dressler 2013;Pansarin 2021;Pansarin and Suetsugu 2022). Seeds of a vast majority of orchids (and of all other cultivated species) are anemochorous, elongated, and light-coloured (Arditti and Ghani 2000).…”

Section: Backgoundmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Acid scarification as a potent treatment for an in vitro germination of mature endozoochorous Vanilla planifolia seeds

2023

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Background Vanilla planifolia is the most widely cultivated species of vanilla with high economic importance. However, seed germination under artificial conditions is difficult and yields low germination percentages. The seeds are adapted to endozoochorous dispersal, and we therefore tried to simulate the conditions in the digestive tract by acid scarification of seeds. Results Immature seeds lacking dormancy, used as a control, showed the highest germination percentage. Among the treatments tested for mature seeds, the hydrochloric acid treatments were significantly the best in breaking dormancy and inducing germination, irrespective of the acid concentration and the presence of pepsin. Conventional treatment with a hypochlorite solution induced much lower germination percentage. Sulphuric acid at concentration 50% was too strong and caused damage to the seeds. Important factor is also high cultivation temperature 30 °C as there was nearly no germination at 25 °C. Conclusions Our protocol significantly improves the efficiency of generative propagation of vanilla and allows for significantly higher germination percentages than previously described. The strongly positive effect of hydrochloric acid may be related to the adaptation of seeds to endozoochorous dispersal.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Backgoundmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Acid scarification as a potent treatment for an in vitro germination of mature endozoochorous Vanilla planifolia seeds

2023

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First evidence for multimodal animal seed dispersal in orchids

et al. 2023

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Evolution and development of fruits of Erycina pusilla and other orchid species

Pramanik,

Becker,

Roessner

et al. 2023

PLoS ONE

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Fruits play a crucial role in seed dispersal. They open along dehiscence zones. Fruit dehiscence zone formation has been intensively studied in Arabidopsis thaliana. However, little is known about the mechanisms and genes involved in the formation of fruit dehiscence zones in species outside the Brassicaceae. The dehiscence zone of A. thaliana contains a lignified layer, while dehiscence zone tissues of the emerging orchid model Erycina pusilla include a lipid layer. Here we present an analysis of evolution and development of fruit dehiscence zones in orchids. We performed ancestral state reconstructions across the five orchid subfamilies to study the evolution of selected fruit traits and explored dehiscence zone developmental genes using RNA-seq and qPCR. We found that erect dehiscent fruits with non-lignified dehiscence zones and a short ripening period are ancestral characters in orchids. Lignified dehiscence zones in orchid fruits evolved multiple times from non-lignified zones. Furthermore, we carried out gene expression analysis of tissues from different developmental stages of E. pusilla fruits. We found that fruit dehiscence genes from the MADS-box gene family and other important regulators in E. pusilla differed in their expression pattern from their homologs in A. thaliana. This suggests that the current A. thaliana fruit dehiscence model requires adjustment for orchids. Additionally, we discovered that homologs of A. thaliana genes involved in the development of carpel, gynoecium and ovules, and genes involved in lipid biosynthesis were expressed in the fruit valves of E. pusilla, implying that these genes may play a novel role in formation of dehiscence zone tissues in orchids. Future functional analysis of developmental regulators, lipid identification and quantification can shed more light on lipid-layer based dehiscence of orchid fruits.

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Mammal‐mediated seed dispersal in Vanilla: Its rewards and clues to the evolution of fleshy fruits in orchids

Cited by 6 publications

References 22 publications

Acid scarification as a potent treatment for an in vitro germination of mature endozoochorous Vanilla planifolia seeds

Acid scarification as a potent treatment for an in vitro germination of mature endozoochorous Vanilla planifolia seeds

First evidence for multimodal animal seed dispersal in orchids

Evolution and development of fruits of Erycina pusilla and other orchid species

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