Abstract Detail

Recent Topics Posters

Ziegler, Christie [1], Igic, Boris [1], Goldberg, Emma [1].

Is pollen size correlated with style length?

In 1896 Delpino postulated that pollen grains self-contained enough endogenous resources to reach the ovule. On the contrary, Amici (1830) and Darwin (1896) proposed that pollen grains obtain the necessary resources to reach the ovule from the transmission tissue of the style. This hypothesis has been tested by many authors with contradictory results, but the scale of the experiments has always been on the order of a dozen species. In this study, pollen grains sizes from 95 species in 11 genera in the Solanaceae were either obtained from the literature or measured with a light microscope and compared to style lengths that were collected from the literature to test for a correlation between style length and pollen volume. The comparative method was used to incorporate phylogeny into the analysis. The exploration of style length and pollen volume was prompted by Delpino's hypothesis, but also led to exploring style length and pollen volume in the context of ploidy and breeding systems. Previous studies have found that polyploid pollen grains are larger than diploid pollen grains due to their increased cell size but no wide-scale study has been done on the Solanaceae yet. Comparing pollen sizes of different breeding systems is also of interest because pollen volume may impact pollen tube growth rate and thus impact the timespan in which the S-RNases can act.

Broader Impacts:

1 - University of Illinois at Chicago, Biological Sciences, 840 W Taylor St., SEL 4085, Chicago, IL, 60607, USA

Keywords:
Solanaceae
pollen
Style
ploidy
breeding system.

Presentation Type: Recent Topics Poster
Session: P
Location: Grand Salon A - D/Riverside Hilton
Date: Monday, July 29th, 2013
Time: 5:30 PM
Number: PRT041
Abstract ID:1338
Candidate for Awards:None