Aneesa Manzoor, Mahima, Pushkin Kachroo, R Uma Shaanker, Ajeet K Sharma
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引用次数: 0
Abstract
Plants may enhance seed fitness by favoring fertilization by pollen grains with superior genetic qualities. Pistil traits, such as style length and stigmatic area, are thought to influence this selection, but the mechanisms remain unclear. The impact of stochastic factors on pollen germination time variations is also not fully understood. To investigate this, we simulated a biophysical model using the Monte Carlo method to study how gamete number and pollen tube travel path length affect pollen selection. Our results show that longer travel paths (style lengths) and greater pollen loads on the stigma increase the probability of genetically superior pollen fertilizing ovules. It is because longer styles and more pollen load suppress stochastic effects, promoting seed fitness by favoring superior pollen. We also identify a tradeoff between the benefits of increased path length or pollen load and the resource costs incurred.
期刊介绍：
EPJ E publishes papers describing advances in the understanding of physical aspects of Soft, Liquid and Living Systems.
Soft matter is a generic term for a large group of condensed, often heterogeneous systems -- often also called complex fluids -- that display a large response to weak external perturbations and that possess properties governed by slow internal dynamics.
Flowing matter refers to all systems that can actually flow, from simple to multiphase liquids, from foams to granular matter.
Living matter concerns the new physics that emerges from novel insights into the properties and behaviours of living systems. Furthermore, it aims at developing new concepts and quantitative approaches for the study of biological phenomena. Approaches from soft matter physics and statistical physics play a key role in this research.
The journal includes reports of experimental, computational and theoretical studies and appeals to the broad interdisciplinary communities including physics, chemistry, biology, mathematics and materials science.
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