Erysimum mediohispanicum
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 Erysimum mediohispanicum
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| Erysimum mediohispanicum (Polatschek, 1979) |
Erysimum mediohispanicum is a perennial short-lived monocarpic herb found in many montane regions of eastern Spain where it is distributed between 800–2,000 m above sea level and inhabits forests, scrublands, and shrublands. It occupies two main regions in the Iberian peninsula, one in the north (Soria to Lérida) and the other in the south-east (Granada, Albacete, Jaen, and Almería provinces).
This species belongs to the nevadense complex species, together with five more Iberian species (Erysimum nevadense, Erysimum gomezcampoi, Erysimum ruscinonense, Erysimum rondae, Erysimum mexmuelleri).
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[edit] Life cycle
Plants germinates during early spring (March to early May), and usually grow for 2–4 years as vegetative rosettes. Much mortality occurrs at this stage due to summer drought. Surviving individuals flower during their second year, and after flowering most individuals die. However, there are a low proportion of individuals that reproduce more than once, this proportion of iteroparous individuals varying geographically.
[edit] Morphology
Reproductive plants produce one to eight reproductive stalks. Each flowering stalk can display between 5 and approx. 60 bright yellow, hermaphroditic, slightly protandrous flowers arranged in corimbous inflorescences. Flowers produce minute amount of nectar in four nectaries. Flower shape is extremely variable, ranging from radially to bilaterally symmetric even in the same population.
[edit] Pollination biology
Flowers are visited by more than one hundred species of insects belonging to the order Hymenoptera, Diptera, Coleoptera, Lepidoptera and Heteroptera. Although this crucifer is self-compatible, it needs pollen vectors to produce full seedset. In fact, plants experimentally excluded from pollinators set only 16% of the fruits set by naturally pollinated plants. Abundant pollinators are the beetles Melighetes maurus (Nitidulidae), Dasytes subaeneus (Dasytidae), Malachius laticollis (Malachidae) and Anthrenus sp. (Anthrenidae), the solitary bees Anthophora leucophaea (Anthophoridae) and Halictus simplex (Halictidae), and the beeflies Bombylius spp. (Bombyliidae).
[edit] Herbivory
In southeastern Spain, reproductive individuals are consumed by many different species of herbivores. Some floral buds do not open because they are galled by flies (Dasineura sp., Cecidomidae). Several species of sap-suckers (primarily the bugs Eurydema oleraceae, E. fieberi, E. ornata, and Corimeris denticulatus) feed on the reproductive stalks during flowering and fruiting. In addition, stalks are bored into by a weevil species (presumably Lixus ochraceus, Curculionidae), which consumes the inner tissues, whereas another weevil species (Ceutorhynchus chlorophanus, Curculionidae) develops inside the fruits, living on developing seeds and acting as predispersal seed predators. The stalks are browsed by Spanish ibex (Capra pyrenaica, Bovidae), which consume flowers and mostly green fruits. Dispersed seeds are consumed by woodmice (Apodemus sylvaticus, Muridae), several species of birds (Fringilla coelebs, Serinus serinus, and Carduelis cannabina Fringillidae, among others), several species of medium-sized granivorous beetles (Iberozabrus sp. Carabidae, among others), and ants (Lasius Niger, Tetramorium caespitum, Cataglyphis velox and Leptothorax tristis). These animals feed on the seeds from late August to early April. Seedlings and juveniles are sometime injured by ibex, sheep, wild boars (Sus scrofa, Suidae), hares (Lepus granatense, Leporidae), and voles (Pitimys spp., Arvicolidae), although most seedlings die due to summer drought and seed quality.
[edit] External links
- evoflor a web page on Erysimum floral evolution
- Flora Ibérica
