AOBPreview published online on October 2, 2002
Annals of Botany, doi:10.1093/aob/mcf231
© 2002 by Annals of Botany Company
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Submitted on March 14, 2002
Affiliation of the authors:
1 Hokkaido Research Centre, Forestry and Forest Products Research Institute (FFPRI), Hitsujigaoka 7, Toyohira, Sapporo 062-8516, Japan;
2 Forestry and Forest Products Research Institute (FFPRI), PO Box 16, Tsukuba Norin Danchi, Ibaraki 305-8687, Japan
* To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: naokoy{at}ffpri.affrc.go.jp.
Flowering activity and sex expression of Bischofia javanica Blume were investigated for 3 years. B. javanica is an invasive dioecious tree of subtropical forests on the Bonin Islands in the western Pacific of Japan. The sex ratio showed a significant male bias (1·25-2·33). Smaller trees were significantly male biased, whereas larger trees showed no significant difference in sex expression, suggesting that males tend to be more precocious in sexual reproduction. We found evidence for sex changes in B. javanica; these have not been reported previously. Most of the 1653 census trees remained non-flowering (58·1 %); 3·7 % of them showed sex changes, and the percentage of trees repeatedly flowering as males and females was 10·5 and 3·4 %, respectively. Sex changes were observed in both directions but a larger percentage of male trees became female. Flowering frequency and sex expression were significantly related to tree size (i.e. diameter at breast height). Over the 3 years, trees that were consistent females were the largest; inconsistent trees (switching sex between years) were intermediate in size, whereas consistent males were the smallest. There were no significant differences in relative growth rate (RGR) among trees of different sex or flowering frequencies. These results suggest that the maintenance of female reproduction is not related to changes in RGR of diameter but to flowering frequency or the reversal to the male form, dependent upon the internal resource status of individual trees.
Revised on July 3, 2002
Accepted on July 24, 2002
Size Distribution, Growth and Inter-year Variation in Sex Expression of Bischofia javanica, an Invasive Tree
NAOKO YAMASHITA1* and TETSUTO ABE2
Key words: Bischofia javanica (Blume), sex ratio, dioecy, sex change, invasive tree, size distribution, growth rate, subtropical oceanic island.
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