Genetic cost of reproductive assurance in a self-fertilizing plant

The transition from outcrossing to self-fertilization is one of the most common evolutionary trends in plants(1). Reproductive assurance, where self-fertilization ensures seed production when pollinators and/or potential mates are scarce, is the most long-standing and most widely accepted explanation for the evolution of selfing(2-8), but there have been few experimental tests of this hypothesis. Moreover, many apparently adaptive floral mechanisms that ensure the autonomous production of selfed seed might use ovules that would have otherwise been outcrossed. This seed discounting is costly if selfed offspring are less viable than their outcrossed counterparts, as often happens. The fertility benefit of reproductive assurance has never been examined in the light of seed discounting. Here we combine experimental measures of reproductive assurance with marker-gene estimates of self-fertilization, seed discounting and inbreeding depression to show that, during 2 years in 10 Ontario populations of Aquilegia canadensis (Ranunculaceae), reproductive assurance through self-fertilization increases seed production, but this benefit is greatly outweighed by severe seed discounting and inbreeding depression.