title: Stylish lengths: mate choice in flowers.
abstract: The styles of flowers may represent an arena for pollen competition in the race to fertilize ovules. Accordingly, selection should favour a longer 'race' to better discriminate among variable pollen by increasing style length. Sampling across a taxonomically diverse range of wild and outcrossed species, we found that the distribution of style lengths within plants were skewed towards longer styles, as predicted. In self-pollinated domesticated species, where discrimination among pollen is less important, we found no such pattern. We conclude that style length is under directional selection towards longer styles as a mechanism for mate choice among pollen of variable quality.
authors.affiliation: Department of Crop Physiology, University of Agricultural Sciences, GKVK, Bangalore 560065, India.
authors.forename: B T
authors.initials: BT
authors.lastname: Ramesha
authors.forename: M D
authors.initials: MD
authors.lastname: Yetish
authors.forename: G
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Ravikanth
authors.forename: K N
authors.initials: KN
authors.lastname: Ganeshaiah
authors.forename: Jaboury
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Ghazoul
authors.forename: R Uma
authors.initials: RU
authors.lastname: Shaanker
mesh_terms: D035264:Flowers / Q000502:physiology*; D010944:Plants; D054817:Pollination; D012641:Selection, Genetic