Mating systems and avoidance of inbreeding depression as evolutionary drivers of pollen limitation in animal-pollinated self-compatible plants.

Background And Aims: Most theory addressing the evolution of pollen limitation in flowering plants focuses on stochasticity in the relative abundance of plant and pollinator populations affecting trade-offs in resource allocation to ovule production or pollinator attraction vs. seed maturation. Mating system evolution is an underappreciated but potentially widespread additional mechanism for the evolutionary emergence of pollen limitation in animal-pollinated self-compatible plants.

Methods: We model individual plant flowering phenologies influencing both pollinator attraction and geitonogamous self-fertilization caused by pollinator movements among flowers within plants, incorporating demographic but not environmental stochasticity. Plant phenology and the resulting pollen limitation are analysed at evolutionarily stable equilibria (ESS). Pollen limitation is measured by two quantities: the proportion of unpollinated flowers and the reduction in maternal fitness caused by inbreeding depression in selfed seeds.

Key Results: When pollinators visit multiple flowers per plant, pollen limitation is never minimized at an ESS and results from the evolution of flowering phenologies balancing the amount and genetic composition (outbred vs. inbred) of pollen receipt.

Conclusions: Results are consistent with previous theory demonstrating that pollen limitation can be an evolved property, not just a constraint; they complement existing models by showing that plant avoidance of inbreeding depression constitutes a genetic mechanism contributing to evolution of pollen limitation, in addition to ecological mechanisms previously studied.