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Pre-dispersal seed predation obscures the detrimental effect of dust on wildflower reproduction - fruit data

Cite this dataset

Price, Mary V. et al. (2021). Pre-dispersal seed predation obscures the detrimental effect of dust on wildflower reproduction - fruit data [Dataset]. Dryad. https://doi.org/10.6086/D10X1R

Abstract

Premise of the Research. Seed production by flowering plants depends on abiotic and biotic factors whose interacting effects may be hidden. We previously reported that exposure to dust from unpaved roads reduced the average amount of pollen on flowers of Ipomopsis aggregata, but did not consistently reduce mean seed set per fruit. Here we explore one possible explanation—that the expected detrimental effect of lower pollen loads on seed production was obscured because dust reduces not only pollination success but also attack by a pre-dispersal seed predator. Methodology. Over three consecutive summers we scored the fates of over 4,000 flowers, comparing those on hand-dusted I. aggregata plants to those on clean control plants in the same natural populations. We censused plants throughout each flowering season, marking phenological cohorts of flowers and examining them for eggs of the Anthomyiid fly Hylemya sp. We subsequently scored expanded fruits for seed loss to Hylemya larvae. Pivotal Results. Control plants consistently had higher egg loads and rates of seed loss to larvae than dusty plants. Furthermore, most eggs appeared early in the season when flowers are most likely to set fruit and ovule numbers are highest. In agreement with earlier studies, unparasitized fruits from dusty plants did not contain fewer seeds than fruits from control plants. But when we simulated a system without Hylemya by assigning each parasitized fruit the average number of seeds for unparasitized flowers in the same phenological cohort, control plants out-produced dusty plants. Conclusions. Pre-dispersal seed predation likely contributed to the previous lack of a negative effect of dust on seed set in I. aggregata. This study illustrates how exploring unexpected experimental outcomes can reveal important ecological interactions, and how the mechanistic understanding so gained can improve the ability to generalize results to other systems.

Methods

During the summers of 2016, 2017, and 2018, pairs of bolting Ipomopsis aggregata plants in a natural population near the Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory in West-Central Colorado, USA, were matched by proximity and size and randomly assigned to receive a hand-dusting or control treatment that was administered throughout the flowering period. Once flowering began, plants were censused every 4 days to record the number of elongated buds and flowers present and their Hylemya egg loads and to mark their calyces with a dot of paint with a census-specific color. A yellow dot was also placed on calyces of flowers with one or more Hylemya eggs.

All fruits were collected when mature. The fate (aborted, expanded, parasitized) of each fruit was recorded, and the number of full-sized seeds counted.

Usage notes

Two files have been uploaded:

DustStudyFruitDataREADME.docx - This file contains variable definitions

2016-2018DustStudyFruitData.txt - This text file contains the data. Missing values are coded with a period.

Funding

National Science Foundation, Award: DBI 1262713

Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory, Award: Krakauer Endowment