Does stress induce variations in mating system?

A classical hypothesis is that colonizing plants are more selfing and non-colonizing plants, found later in ecological successions, are more outcrossing. We proposed to refine this framework in the context if the Grime's CSR theory of ecological strategies. Without physiological stress and resource limitation, selfing ruderals are indeed replaced by more outcrossing competitors along an ecological succession. But stress-tolerant plants living in harsh environments tend to display mixed mating systems. Kalmia procumbens, a dwarf Ericaceae shrub living in high-elevation rocky habitats of Alps, is one of them (photo). Therefore, mating system variation should be better understood in a multidimensional scheme of ecological strategies, beyond the basic dichotomy of colonizing and non-colonizing plants.

Francois Munoz

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