AOBPreview originally published online on December 7, 2004
Annals of Botany 2005 95(3):431-437; doi:10.1093/aob/mci041
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Annals of Botany 95/3 © Annals of Botany Company 2004; all rights reserved
Flower Size Variation in Rosmarinus officinalis: Individuals, Populations and Habitats
Departamento de Biología Vegetal y Ecología, Universidad de Sevilla, Apartado 1095, E-41080 Sevilla, Spain
* For correspondence. E-mail maliani{at}us.es
Received: 26 May 2004 Returned for revision: 13 September 2004 Accepted: 14 October 2004 Published electronically: 7 December 2004
• Background and Aims Flowers are relatively invariant organs within species, but quantitative variation often exists among conspecifics. These variations represent the raw material that natural selection can magnify, eventually resulting in morphological divergence and diversification. This paper investigates floral variability in Rosmarinus officinalis, a Mediterranean shrub.
• Methods Nine populations were selected in three major southern Spanish habitats (coast, lowland and mountains) along an elevation gradient. Flower samples from randomly chosen plants were collected from each population, and a total of 641 flowers from 237 shrubs were weighed while still fresh to the nearest 0·1 mg. Leaves from the same plants were also measured. Variations among habitats, sites and plants were explored with general linear model ANOVA. Leaf–flower covariation was also investigated.
• Key Results Most (58 %) mass in flowers was accounted for by the corolla, whose linear dimensions correlated directly with flower mass. Averaged over plants, the mass of a flower varied between 12 mg and 38 mg. Habitat, site (within habitat) and shrub identity had significant effects on mass variance. Flowers from the coast were the smallest (17 mg) and those from the mountains the largest (25 mg on average). A pattern of continuously increasing flower size with elevation emerged which was largely uncoupled from the geographical pattern of leaf size variation.
• Conclusions As regards flower size, a great potential to local differentiation exists in Rosmarinus. Observed divergences accord with a regime of large-bodied pollinator selection in the mountains, but also with resource–cost hypotheses on floral evolution that postulate that reduced corollas are advantageous under prevailingly stressful conditions.
Key words: Bees, coast, drought, flower size, Lamiaceae, Mediterranean, mountain, pollination, Rosmarinus officinalis, shrub, Spain
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