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Morph-specific correlations between floral traits in a distylous Ophiorrhiza napoensis (Rubiaceae) population in southern China

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 November 2001

HIROSHI KUDOH
Affiliation:
Department of Biological Sciences, Graduate School of Science, Tokyo Metropolitan University, Hachioji, Tokyo 192-0397, Japan
TAKASHI SUGAWARA
Affiliation:
Makino Herbarium, Graduate School of Science, Tokyo Metropolitan University, Hachioji, Tokyo 192-0397, Japan
SUGONG WU
Affiliation:
Kunming Institute of Botany, Academia Sinica, Heilongtan, Kunming, Yunnan 650204, China
JIN MURATA
Affiliation:
Botanical Gardens, Faculty of Science, The University of Tokyo, Tokyo 112-0001, Japan

Abstract

Floral trait correlations were compared between the two flower morphs of a distylous Ophiorrhiza napoensis population in a subtropical evergreen forest at the Defu Natural Animal Preserve, Guangxi, China. Common principal component analyses indicated that overall patterns in correlations among floral traits were morph specific in the study population. Strong positive correlations (r > 0.9) between anther height and corolla-tube length were found in both morphs. Stigma height correlated positively with corolla-tube length in the long-styled morph (r = 0.843), but not in the short-styled morph (r = −0.018). Flower-morph-specific correlation suggests that natural selection by pollinators has moulded trait covariance among floral traits. Because morph-specific correlations are expressed as the patterns of within-morph variation among multiple traits, putative genes responsible for the stigma-corolla tube correlation should not link to the supergene for sex-organ reciprocity between the morphs, but their expression is limited in the long-styled morph.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
© 2001 Cambridge University Press

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