Lessons from Red Data Books: Plant Vulnerability Increases with Floral Complexity

PLoS One. 2015 Sep 21;10(9):e0138414. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0138414. eCollection 2015.

Abstract

The architectural complexity of flower structures (hereafter referred to as floral complexity) may be linked to pollination by specialized pollinators that can increase the probability of successful seed set. As plant-pollinator systems become fragile, a loss of such specialized pollinators could presumably result in an increased likelihood of pollination failure. This is an issue likely to be particularly evident in plants that are currently rare. Using a novel index describing floral complexity we explored whether this aspect of the structure of flowers could be used to predict vulnerability of plant species to extinction. To do this we defined plant vulnerability using the Red Data Book of Rare and Threatened Plants of Greece, a Mediterranean biodiversity hotspot. We also tested whether other intrinsic (e.g. life form, asexual reproduction) or extrinsic (e.g. habitat, altitude, range-restrictedness) factors could affect plant vulnerability. We found that plants with high floral complexity scores were significantly more likely to be vulnerable to extinction. Among all the floral complexity components only floral symmetry was found to have a significant effect, with radial-flower plants appearing to be less vulnerable. Life form was also a predictor of vulnerability, with woody perennial plants having significantly lower risk of extinction. Among the extrinsic factors, both habitat and maximum range were significantly associated with plant vulnerability (coastal plants and narrow-ranged plants are more likely to face higher risk). Although extrinsic and in particular anthropogenic factors determine plant extinction risk, intrinsic traits can indicate a plant's proneness to vulnerability. This raises the potential threat of declining global pollinator diversity interacting with floral complexity to increase the vulnerability of individual plant species. There is potential scope for using plant-pollinator specializations to identify plant species particularly at risk and so target conservation efforts towards them.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Altitude
  • Animals
  • Biodiversity
  • Books
  • Ecosystem
  • Flowers / anatomy & histology*
  • Flowers / physiology*
  • Greece
  • Insecta / physiology
  • Plants / anatomy & histology*
  • Pollination / physiology
  • Reproduction / physiology
  • Seeds / physiology

Grants and funding

This study was co-financed by the European Union (European Social Fund [ESF]) and Greek national funds through the Operational Program "Education and Lifelong Learning" of the National Strategic Reference Framework (NSRF) – Research Funding Program: THALES – Investing in knowledge society through the European Social Fund (see ref. 20 in the text). Additional support has been provided to AS by the FP7 European project STEP (see ref. 21 in the text). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.