Dissertation Research: Viability Selection at Three Early Life Stages of the Tropical Tree, Platypodium elegans

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9902041Hamrick & HuffordMany plant species, especially trees, abort relatively large proportions of their fertilized flowers. Although such abortion can occur at any stage of fruit development, often substantial abortion occurs very late in the fruit maturation period. Many theories have been developed to explain this phenomena, but very little is known about the actual abortion process. In particular, it is generally not known whether the fruits that are aborted represent a random sample of the fertilized ovules or whether abortion represents the mortality of seeds with specific pedigrees, e.g., fruits developing after self-pollination. Platypodium elegans is a tropical tree with relatively high late fruit abortion. Advanced DNA technologies will be used to compare aborted fruits, non-aborted fruits, and established seedlings of this species to document whether natural selection is acting to select seedlings with specific pedigrees or genetic compositions.This study will greatly advance our understanding of plant breeding systems and will provide greater understanding of the role natural selection plays in the early stages of plant life cycles. The results of this research may also allow predictions of the effect of tropical forest fragmentation on the ability of trees like P. elegans to successfully reproduce.