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Observations on the Reproductive Biology of Miconia calvescens DC (Melastomataceae), an Alien Invasive Tree on the Island of Tahiti (South Pacific Ocean)1
| Content Provider | Semantic Scholar |
|---|---|
| Author | Meyer, Jean-Yves |
| Copyright Year | 1998 |
| Abstract | Miconia caluescens DC (Melastomataceae) is a dominant invasive species in the tropical oceanic island of Tahiti (French Polynesia, South Pacific Ocean), where it was introduced as an ornamental plant. Whereas this small tree is sparse in its native range of Central America, it has spread in ‘Tahiti into a wide variety of habitats including native wet forests. The remarkable success of this invasion is due in great part to prolific reproduction: a mature tree can bear up to 220 inflorescences with an average of 1330 AowerslinHorescence, 208 fruitslinfructescence and 175 seeddfruit. lwo and a half years of phenological observations in a highly invaded site indicated that three major peaks of flowering occurlyear over brief periods: Hower anthesis lasted a few days and pollen grain germination suggested a short stigmatic receptivity of only a few hours; no pollinators were observed foraging on flowers during our survey; the production of fruits containing viable seeds in bagged inflorescences showed that self-fertilization can occur; pollen-ovule ratio (log PI0 = 2.68) suggested facultative xenogamy; bagged isolated flowers to test for autogamy and style cutting to learn whether apomixis occured or not were not conclusive. The flowering phenology and the breeding system of M. caluescens enable this plant to build up rapidly successful populations from even a single propagule on the island of Tahiti and on other sites of introducrion. The vegetation structure of Polynesian native forests compared to Neotropical rain forests probably plays an important role in determining the reproductive success of M. caluescens and could provide a complementary explanation of the biological invasion processes in tropical oceanic islands. |
| Starting Page | 609 |
| Ending Page | 624 |
| Page Count | 16 |
| File Format | PDF HTM / HTML |
| DOI | 10.1111/j.1744-7429.1998.tb00101.x |
| Alternate Webpage(s) | https://www.li-an.fr/jyves/Meyer_1998_Biotropica_Reproductive_Biology_Miconia.pdf |
| Alternate Webpage(s) | https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1744-7429.1998.tb00101.x |
| Volume Number | 30 |
| Language | English |
| Access Restriction | Open |
| Content Type | Text |
| Resource Type | Article |
