Details

Autor(en) / Beteiligte

• Shykoff, Jacqui A
• Bucheli, Erika
• Kaltz, Oliver

Titel

Flower lifespan and disease risk

Ist Teil von

• Nature (London), 1996-02, Vol.379 (6568), p.779-779

Erscheinungsjahr

1996

Quelle

Alma/SFX Local Collection

Beschreibungen/Notizen

• Ashman and Schoen have proposed that plant fitness is an increasing function of pollination success, and a decreasing function of floral maintenance and production costs. They concluded that different pollination regimes, and different relative costs of flower construction and maintenance, determine optimal floral longevity for a species or population. Here we suggest another factor relevant to the evolution of flower lifespans. The pollinator-borne plant pathogen, the anther-smut Microbotryum violaceum (Pers.) Deml and Oberw, affects members of the pink family (Caryophyllaceae) and is mainly transmitted by pollinators. Successful infection requires several time-consuming processes. After a diploid teliospore, the dispersal unit of this basidiomycete fungus is carried to an uninfected plant by a pollinator, it undergoes meiosis, and two haploid sporidia of opposite mating type conjugate to produce the infectious dikaryon that invades the plant.