Responses of a legume to inbreeding and the intensity of novel and familiar stresses.

It is often assumed that the negative effects of inbreeding on fitness (inbreeding depression, ID) are particularly strong under stressful conditions. However, ID may be relatively mild under types of stress that plant populations have experienced for a long time, because environment-specific deleterious alleles may already have been purged. We examined the performance of open- and self-pollinated progeny of the short-lived calcareous grassland plant Anthyllis vulneraria under three intensities of each of five types of stress. Drought, nutrient deficiency, and defoliation were chosen as stresses typical for the habitat of origin, while shade and waterlogging were expected to be novel, unfamiliar stresses for A. vulneraria. The stresses reduced plant biomass by up to 91%, and the responses of the plants were mostly in line with the functional equilibrium hypothesis. There was significant ID in biomass (δ = 0.17), leaf chlorophyll content, and the number of root nodules of the legume, but the magnitude of ID was independent of the stress treatments. In particular, there was no significant interaction between inbreeding and the intensity of any stress type, and ID was not higher under novel than under familiar stresses. In addition, phenotypic plasticity in biomass allocation, leaf functional traits and in root nodulation of the legume to the various stress treatments was not influenced by inbreeding. Our findings do not support the common hypothesis of stronger ID under stressful environments, not even if the stresses are novel to the plants.

Interactions of inbreeding and stress by poor host quality in a root hemiparasite.

BACKGROUND AND AIMS: Populations of many hemiparasitic plants are fragmented and threatened by inbreeding depression (ID). In addition, they may also be strongly affected by a lack of suitable host species. However, nothing is known about possible interactive effects of inbreeding and host quality for parasitic plants. Poor host quality represents a special type of biotic stress and the magnitude of ID is often expected to be higher in more stressful environments. METHODS: We studied the effects of inbreeding and the quality of host species for the declining root hemiparasite Rhinanthus alectorolophus Selfed and open-pollinated parasites from two natural populations were grown (1) with 13 potential host species and (2) with 15 four-species mixtures. KEY RESULTS: ID differed among host species and mixtures. In the first experiment, ID was highest in parasites grown with good hosts and declined with stress intensity. In the second experiment, ID was not influenced by stress intensity, but was highest in mixtures of hosts from only one functional group and lowest in mixtures containing three functional groups. Both parasite performance with individual host species and the damage to these host species differed between parasites from the two study populations. CONCLUSIONS: Our results contradict the common assumption that ID is generally higher in more stressful environments. In addition, they support the importance of diverse host communities for hemiparasitic plants. The differences in host quality between the two parasite populations indicate genetic variation in the adaptation to individual hosts and in host-specific virulence. However, inbreeding did not affect specific host-parasite interactions.

The effects of stress intensity and stress type on inbreeding depression in Silene vulgaris.

Inbreeding depression (ID) is generally assumed to increase under stressful conditions, but a number of studies have found the opposite pattern, that is that crossed offspring were more capable of exploiting benign conditions. Alternatively, the phenotypic variation hypothesis predicts that not stress intensity, but enhanced phenotypic variation in an environment leads to increased ID. We subjected inbred and crossed offspring of Silene vulgaris to drought, simulated herbivory, copper contamination, and two levels of nutrient deficiency and shade. In contrast to the predominant expectation, most stress treatments decreased inbreeding depression. With increasing nutrient limitation, ID decreased strongly, whereas under increasing shade ID did not change. These differences may be due to purging in the population of origin where conditions are nutrient-poor and dry, but not shaded. In contrast to the greenhouse experiment, ID was higher in a field site than in a more benign common garden. However, the predictions of the phenotypic variation hypothesis were met in both the greenhouse and the field versus garden experiment. The results suggest that there may be no general relationship between ID and stress intensity, but specific effects of stress type and the novelty and variability of the environment.