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Title
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Is there silicon in flowers and what does it tell us?
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Author
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Abstract
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| The emergence of flowers marked an important development in plant evolution. Flowers in many species evolved to attract animal pollinators to increase fertilisation chances. In leaves, silicon (Si) discourages herbivores e.g. by wearing down mouthparts. Flowers are essentially modified leaves, and hence may also have capacity to accumulate Si. If Si in flowers discourages animal visitors as it does in leaves, Si accumulation may be disadvantageous for pollination. Whether flowers accumulate Si, and what the implications may be, was not known for many species. We analysed leaves and flowers of different taxa, separated into their different anatomical parts. Flowers mostly have low Si concentrations in all parts (mean se of BSi in mg g-1 was 0.2160.044 in petals, 0.5850.238 in sepals, 0.1430.027 in stamens, 0.1520.042 in styles and stigmas, and 0.3740.188 in ovaries for a subset of 56 species). In most cases less Si was accumulated in flowers than leaves (mean se of BSi in mg g-1 was 1.510.545 in whole flowers vs 2.970.566 in leaves in 104 species) though intriguing exceptions are found, with some species accumulating more Si in flowers than leaves. The large variation in concentration among flowers across the taxa examined, with particularly high concentration in grass inflorescences, tantalisingly suggests differences in the use of Si for flowers across plant groups. We conclude that the study of functions of Si for flowers warrants more attention, with pollination strategy a potential contributing factor. |
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Language
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English
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Source (journal)
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Ecology and evolution. - Oxford, 2011, currens
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Publication
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Oxford
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Wiley-Blackwell
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2023
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ISSN
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2045-7758
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Volume/pages
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13
:10
(2023)
, p. 1-11
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Article Reference
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e10630
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Full text (Publisher's DOI)
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Full text (open access)
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