Systematic review of the costs of reproduction in flowering plants
Costs of reproduction arise when investments into current reproduction reduce expected fitness gains from future reproduction. Although costs of reproduction in plants have been frequently studied, difficulties associated with estimating reproductive trade-offs for entire plants and estimating fitness-based trade-offs have complicated the full accounting of reproductive costs. In spite of these difficulties, an increasing number of studies using estimates of fitness have convincingly demonstrated fitness-based trade-offs, and therefore that reproductive costs are important for shaping plant life histories. However, not all studies have detected costs of reproduction, and ~90% of these were conducted in natural populations where controlling for variation in plant resource status is challenging. In contrast the previous findings, we found no clear evidence for differences in reproductive costs between the sexes of dioecious plants. Other aspects of reproductive costs remain poortly understood, including ecological costs of reproduction, the connections between somatic costs of reproduction and fitness, and how the male sex role influences reproductive costs. Progress will be enabled by the use of measurments that allow for easier comparisons across studies, and by more clearly distinguishing between the processes that contribute to current versus future reproduction.
Funding
Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC)
Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council
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