Pollinic characters in Mediterranean salt marsh plants in relation to their pollination mechanism

Abstract

In an attempt to establish if a correlation exists between penological characters, type of pollination and ecology, a group of 50 plants were selected from salt marshes in the Dehesa de la Albufera (Valencia, Spain). Two logical matrices were constructed with pollinic characters and species in one of them, and plant communities and characters in the other; a muttivariant analysis (FAC) being applied to both. As a result, It was observed that, while no correlation exists between characters and communities, it does exist between pollinic characters and the pollination type of a plant. All pollinic characters considered, with the exception of the aperture system, are associated to some pollination mechanism with three groups being distinguished: Anemophilous pollination plants, clearly differentiated from entomophilous ones and, within the latter group, two subgroups are distinguished in which differences in the colourfulness of the flowers are associated to pollinic characters, which suggests that the insects responsable for the pollination of each one of them are different. © Taylor & Francis Group, LLC.