Unusual positional effects on flower sex in an andromonoecious tree: Resource competition, architectural constraints, or inhibition by the apical flower?

Premise Of The Study: Two, nonmutually exclusive, mechanisms-competition for resources and architectural constraints-have been proposed to explain the proximal to distal decline in flower size, mass, and/or femaleness in indeterminate, elongate inflorescences. Whether these mechanisms also explain unusual positional effects such as distal to proximal declines of floral performance in determinate inflorescences, is understudied.

Methods: We tested the relative influence of these mechanisms in the andromonoecious wild olive tree, where hermaphroditic flowers occur mainly on apical and the most proximal positions in determinate inflorescences.

The expression of light-related leaf functional traits depends on the location of individual leaves within the crown of isolated Olea europaea trees.

Background: The spatial arrangement and expression of foliar syndromes within tree crowns can reflect the coupling between crown form and function in a given environment. Isolated trees subjected to high irradiance and concomitant stress may adjust leaf phenotypes to cope with environmental gradients that are heterogeneous in space and time within the tree crown. The distinct expression of leaf phenotypes among crown positions could lead to complementary patterns in light interception at the crown scale.

Temporal matching among diurnal photosynthetic patterns within the crown of the evergreen sclerophyll Olea europaea L.

Trees are modular organisms that adjust their within-crown morphology and physiology in response to within-crown light gradients. However, whether within-plant variation represents a strategy for optimizing light absorption has not been formally tested. We investigated the arrangement of the photosynthetic surface throughout one day and its effects on the photosynthetic process, at the most exposed and most sheltered crown layers of a wild olive tree (Olea europaea L.

Phenotypic plasticity and integration across the canopy of Olea europaea subsp. guanchica (Oleaceae) in populations with different wind exposures.

Woody plants, as sessile and long-lived organisms, are expected to have effective mechanisms for dealing with recurrent environmental stresses. In the present study, we hypothesized that phenotypic plasticity (the ability to express alternative phenotypes) and integration (covariation among functionally related traits) are elicited in plants under stressful wind speed conditions. We investigated the within-crown variation of nine vegetative traits of a tree species (Olea europaea subsp.

Genetic diversity and differentiation processes in the ploidy series of Olea europaea L.: a multiscale approach from subspecies to insular populations.

Geographical isolation and polyploidization are central concepts in plant evolution. The hierarchical organization of archipelagos in this study provides a framework for testing the evolutionary consequences for polyploid taxa and populations occurring in isolation. Using amplified fragment length polymorphism and simple sequence repeat markers, we determined the genetic diversity and differentiation patterns at three levels of geographical isolation in Olea europaea: mainland-archipelagos, islands within an archipelago, and populations within an island.