Pollen Competition in Wild Radish: Effects of Variation in Pollen Load Size and Composition on Seed Paternity and Progeny Growth

9981796马歇尔在授粉过程中，到达花朵的花粉粒通常比使所有种子受精所需的花粉粒多。这为来自不同植物的花粉的差异成功提供了机会。虽然这一过程可能会影响植物在交配过程中的成功，从而选择特定的特征，但很难确定它在自然种群中是否重要。Marshall和她的学生将通过研究不同花粉供体在野生萝卜上的不同花粉负荷大小和组成的差异种子繁殖能力和差异后代表现，直接解决这一问题。一般来说，了解控制植物交配成功的因素是很重要的，因为这些因素控制着近亲繁殖是否发生，某些植物是否比其他植物更成功，以及物种形成是否发生。花粉供体之间差异成功的具体案例很重要，因为这被认为是一种更快地将理想性状育种到作物物种中的工具。研究交配过程中的成功是否总是与生长过程中的成功相关，对于预测这种植物育种方法的实用性至关重要。这个实验也有教育上的好处，因为马歇尔将继续让大量的本科生和研究生参与研究。这些学生中有很大一部分是女性和少数民族。

9981796MarshallDuring pollination, more pollen grains typically arrive at flowers than are necessary to fertilize all of the seeds. This provides an opportunity for differential success of pollen from different plants. Although this process might affect the success of plants during mating and thus select for particular characteristics, it has been difficult to resolve whether it is important in natural populations. By studying both differential seed siring ability and differential offspring performance of pollen donors in experiments that vary both the size and composition of pollen loads on wild radish, Marshall and her students will directly address this problem.Generally speaking, understanding of the factors that control plant mating success is important because these factors control whether inbreeding occurs, whether some plants are more successful than others, and whether speciation occurs. The specific case of differential success among pollen donors is important because this has been suggested as a tool for faster breeding of desirable traits into crop species. Addressing whether success during mating is always correlated with success during growth is essential to predicting the utility of this method of plant breeding. This experiment also has educational benefits as Marshall will continue to involve significant numbers of undergraduate and graduate students in the research. A high proportion of these students have been women and minorities.