Selective fruit filling in relation to pollen load size in Alstroemeria aurea (Alstroemeriaceae)

We conducted an experiment in a natural population of Alstroemeria aurea, a clonal perennial, to determine (1) if reproduction was resource limited, and (2) if fruits would be selectively filled based on differences in pollination intensity when pollen loads were adequate for full seed set. Under these conditions, differences in pollination intensity are unlikely to affect seed number, but could affect seed quality, providing an interesting test of the gametophytic competition hypothesis. To test for resource limitation, percent fruit maturation, number of seeds per fruit and average seed weight were compared to paired controls for ramets in which all but one fruit was removed. To test the effect of pollination intensity on selective resource allocation, three types of pollination treatments were performed: (1) all flowers of the single inflorescence received a low pollen load, (2) all flowers received a high pollen load, (3) alternate flowers of the inflorescence received either a high or a low pollen load. We determined the percentage of fruit that reached maturity, counted the number of seeds and ovules and calculated the average seed weight for all capsules in each treatment. Resources appeared to limit reproduction in this population since seed number and weight were significantly higher than in controls when competing capsules were removed. At the whole ramet level, a four fold difference in pollen loads had no significant effect on any of the parameters measured. However, when pollination intensity varied within an inflorescence, the number of seeds per fruit increased by about 10% in flowers that received the higher pollen load. We observed the same trend in each of 2 years, but the increase was significant in only 1 year. The differences,, although not great, were only slightly smaller than when all competing fruits were removed, and were consistent with selective re source allocation based on pollination intensity independent of seed set.