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Global patterns of reproductive and cytotype diversity in an invasive clonal plant

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Abstract

The reproductive systems of invasive species play a key role in determining their geographical distributions. Oxalis pes-caprae is a clonal, polyploid, heterostylous, plant native to South Africa, but now invasive in all major Mediterranean climatic regions. Here, we extend earlier surveys in the Western Mediterranean basin of floral morph ratios, reproductive traits and ploidy level to include populations from South Africa and introduced regions of Australia, California and Chile. We sampled a total of 104 populations, 33 in South Africa, 29 in Australia, 27 in California and 15 in Chile and collected data on floral morph representation (trimorphic, dimorphic, monomorphic), flower size, fruit set, and ploidy level using flow cytometry. There were significant differences among regions in floral morph structure of populations, reproductive traits and ploidy level. Populations in South Africa were exclusively tristylous and largely tetraploid (4x); Australian populations were mostly pentaploid (5x, 65.5%), comprised exclusively of the short-styled morph, with the remaining populations either dimorphic or trimorphic. Populations in California and Chile were comprised exclusively of the 5x short-styled morph. Fruit set varied dramatically among populations with no fruit produced in 5x populations. Our study demonstrates striking geographical variation among regions in reproductive systems ranging from a mixture of sexual and clonal reproduction in the native range to exclusively clonal propagation in some introduced regions. This variation is likely to have important consequences for local adaptation and should be considered in future management decisions of invasive populations.

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Acknowledgements

The authors thank the Western Cape Nature Conservation Board and Department of Environment and Nature Conservation, Northern Cape, and State Governments in Australia for providing authorizations to collect and undertake scientific research. The authors also thank Joana Costa for help with sampling. This research was supported by FEDER funds through the COMPETE Program and by Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT) funds in the ambit of the project PTDC/BIA-BIC/110824/2009, CRUP Acções Integradas Luso-Espanholas 2010 with the project E10/10, MCI-Programa de Internacionalización de la ICD (PT2009-0068) of the Spanish DGICYT (CGL2009-10466 and CGL2013-45941), the Xunta de Galicia (INCITE09-3103009PR, CITACA and R2014/036), the Percy Sladen Memorial Fund (2014 and 2015 calls) and the British Ecological Society (BES Small Research Grant 5355/6399). FCT also supported the work of SC (BPD/41200/2007, Starting Grant IF/01267/2013) and VF (SFRH/BPD/108707/2015). SCHB was supported by a Discovery Grant from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada.

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  1. Centre for Functional Ecology, Department of Life Sciences, Faculty of Sciences and Technology, University of Coimbra, Calçada Martim de Freitas, 3000-456, Coimbra, Portugal

    Victoria Ferrero, Sílvia Castro & João Loureiro

  2. Department of Plant Biology, Faculty of Biology, University of Vigo, As Lagoas-Marcosende, 36310, Vigo, Spain

    Victoria Ferrero, Luis Navarro & José M. Sánchez

  3. Instituto de Biología, Facultad de Ciencias, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Valparaíso, Campus Curauma, 2373223, Valparaíso, Chile

    Gastón O. Carvallo

  4. Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Toronto, 25 Willcocks Street, Toronto, ON, M5S 3B2, Canada

    Spencer C. H. Barrett

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  1. Victoria Ferrero
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Ferrero, V., Navarro, L., Castro, S. et al. Global patterns of reproductive and cytotype diversity in an invasive clonal plant. Biol Invasions 22, 1691–1703 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10530-020-02213-9

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