Effects of forest fragmentation on male and female reproductive success in Cestrum parqui (Solanaceae)

Abstract

In this paper we evaluate the effects of forest fragmentation on male (pollen removal, pollen load, and pollen tubes) and female reproductive success (fruit- and seed-set) of Cestrum parqui, a self-incompatible, pollination-specialist plant species. We also measure focal individual conspecific density to account for possible density-related effects that could influence the response variables. We calculate an index which incorporates male and female fitness and gives an integrated assessment of overall reproductive success. Forest fragmentation strongly affected the amount of pollen grains on stigmas and number of pollen tubes as well as seed-set, decreasing from continuous forest to small forest fragments, whereas focal individual conspecific density failed to explain any of the variability for the studied variables. Declines in overall reproductive success (i.e. male and female) in small forest fragments are ascribed to decreases in both the quality and quantity of pollination. Self-incompatibility coupled with a specialist pollination system may be particularly important traits determining the negative fragmentation effects observed in C. parqui. Logarithmic regression models described the behaviour of the variables along the fragmentation size gradient, allowing us to detect a threshold below which the effects of fragmentation begin to negatively affect reproductive success in C. parqui. Our results emphasize the importance of evaluating both components of the total plant fitness, as well as including simultaneously several aspects of pollination and reproduction processes when assessing the effects of forest fragmentation on plant reproductive success.