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FORAL AND FRUIT MORPHOLOGY AND PHENOLOGY OF ARTOCARPUS HETEROPHYLLUS LAM. (MORACEAE)
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An understanding of flowering and fruiting morphology and phenology is fundamental for making sound decisions on genetic conservation and management of tree species. Such information is currently scarce and limited by the lack of detailed studies. Artocarpus heterophyllus Lam. (Moraceae) is an important multipurpose tree in south and southeast Asia. Despite the importance of A. heterophyllus, little is known about its reproductive morphology and phenology. The objective of this study was to examine the flowering and fruiting morphology and phenology in a naturalized population. A. heterophyllus is a monoecious species with male biased inflorescence sex ratio. In average, female and male inflorescences contain 5,695 ± 52 female and 5,819 ± 498 male flowers, respectively. Based on morphological characters of inflorescences, nine and six developmental stages of female and male inflorescences respectively were identified. Syncarps ripen approximately three months after emergence of inflorescence from the stipule. Individual stigmas of A. heterophyllus are receptive for a mean period of five days whilst female inflorescence was receptive for period of 15 days. Stigmatic receptivity of A. heterophyllus can be identified by fleshy, straight and milky-white stigmas. Phenological studies showed complete synchrony of the female flowering phase with the male phase for a given individual, providing ample opportunities for geitonogamous self-pollination. Conversely, synchronous flowering among individuals increased the possibilities for cross pollination. According to frequency and regularity of flowering and fruiting of individual trees, seven flowering and three fruiting patterns were identified with bimodal peaks. Fruit set of A. heterophyllus was very high whereas seed set/syncarp was very low. Implications of these findings on conservation and utilization of the species are discussed.
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... The phenology of flowering and fruiting plays an important role in plant reproduction since it determines the availability and fitness of the female and male reproductive organs in the population. The availability of male and female reproductive organs affects the success of the reproductive processes by ensuring fruit and seed production in a certain flowering period [1,2]. Information on reproductive phenology is crucial in determining the timing of seed harvesting, as well as basic information in arranging the conservation and breeding strategies for a given species [2]. ...
... However, in areas with distinct dry and wet seasons, jackfruit only flowers during the wet season [5]. Flowering frequency of jackfruit can be annual (once a year), biannual (once every two years), sub-annual (more than twice a year), or irregular (uncertain) [1,12,13]. Jackfruit is self-incompatible and has a crossmating preference [13][14][15]. This difference in flowering can be due to climatic conditions [1,3,16,17] and genetics [6,11,14,16], which is represented in the variation of flowered individuals, flowers abundance, flowering initiation and duration, and final fruit production [1,4,5]. ...
... Jackfruit is self-incompatible and has a crossmating preference [13][14][15]. This difference in flowering can be due to climatic conditions [1,3,16,17] and genetics [6,11,14,16], which is represented in the variation of flowered individuals, flowers abundance, flowering initiation and duration, and final fruit production [1,4,5]. ...
This study aimed to determine the flowering and fruiting phenology of jackfruit originated from Sumatra landraces planted in ex situ conservation in Yogyakarta within the 2018 and 2019 flowering periods. Flowering ontogeny and phenology were observed following Owens and Pushpakumara methods. Results found five developmental stages of male inflorescences, which last in 64-101 days, ended by the drought and abscissed of the males. Female inflorescences undergo five stages which take 92-160 days in total. Differences in rainfall and the dry season period resulted in different onset and duration of flowering. In 2018, which has more rainfall and a shorter dry season, flowering initiates lately (February-June) with a longer duration (6 months). In 2019, the less rainfall and more extended dry season resulted in early flowering (January-April) with a shorter duration (4 months). The Medan landrace flowered later and longer. Flowering synchrony occurred between sexes within the same tree, but there was asynchronous flowering among individual trees. Water availability is crucial in flowering and fruit production. Flowering stimulation and pollination management may also be conducted to increase flower production, pollinating agents, and fruit production and synchronize the flowering.
... The results of the earlier studies showed that it is promising to use the spherical Laguerre Voronoi diagram as a tool for modeling the pattern formation of tessellation patterns on the fruit skins. Based on the biological viewpoint of the fruits which we used in experiments including jackfruit, lychee, raspberry, sugar apple [12][13][14][15], we also found the common characteristics of fruits which lead to the modeling rules of the patterns formations. ...
... In this study, we propose a framework to dynamical model of the tessellation patterns on the sphere using the spherical Laguerre Voronoi diagram. The basic assumptions are modified from the Voronoi growth model proposed by Okabe et al. in [1] based on the characteristics excerpted from the biological information of [12][13][14][15]. The energy model is presented to control the dynamics of the tessellations, and the problem is reduced to the optimization problem. ...
... Based on the reviewed problem [10,11,17] and the biological information in [12][13][14][15], we first consider the representing structure of objects to the geometrical viewpoint as follow. ...
We propose a model for generating tessellation patterns on the sphere using the spherical Laguerre Voronoi diagram which satisfies the real-world assumptions. The generator pushing model is presented to generate the tessellation dynamically. The simulations were done for the different distribution of spherical circles on the sphere, and the results show the tendency of the distribution of resulting spherical circles.
... Pistillate flowers are light to dark green and larger and have a thicker peduncle than staminate flowers (Acedo 1992), and each flower consists of a perianth, stigma, and a unilocular ovary. Staminate inflorescence is smooth, fleshy and cylindrical to club-shaped and 2-11 cm in length and 1-5 cm in wide, found on terminal shoots, tree branches, and main trunk, which usually appear first than pistillate (Pushpakumara 2006). Stigmas are short and fresh for 1-2 weeks and continue to elongate and remain fresh for a longer period when bagged (Primack 1985). ...
... Stigmas are short and fresh for 1-2 weeks and continue to elongate and remain fresh for a longer period when bagged (Primack 1985). Six stages of staminate inflorescence were observed from light green with a smooth surface to yellowish and rough when anther appears (Pushpakumara 2006). The stamen has four anthers with a sweet scent (Purseglove 1968). ...
... The male flowers which was maximum anthesis flowering are more pollen germinability by Newstromet 8 and which can greater contribution for crossing of the variety. At the beginning, male inflorescences were light green with a smooth surface, becoming yellowish and rough when anthers appear 11 . They were cylindrical or barrel-shaped, 8-11 cm long and 3-5 cm wide at the time of maximum pollen presentation. ...
... It is monoecious and bears unisexual flowers. People eat the syncarpous ripe fruit fresh, while the unripe fruit is used as a vegetable and has a consistency similar to meat (Pushpakumara, 2006). A. heterophyllus has immense potential to cater to pharmaceutical/biomaterial, paint, agro-based, and several other product-specific sectors (Jagadeesh et al., 2007). ...
Jack (Artocarpus heterophyllus) is a multi-purpose out-breeding tree species of the family Moraceae. We generated 42,928,887 high-quality expressed sequence reads, assembled them into 89,356 unigenes, and discovered 16,853 unigene-based perfect SSRs in A. heterophyllus. Thirty-eight polymorphic SSRs were used to analyze the genetic diversity and population structure of 224 germplasm accessions of A. heterophyllus constituting three populations from three agro-climatic zones, namely Eastern Plateau and Hills, Middle Gangetic Plain Region, and Eastern Himalayan Region, encompassing five Eastern and North-Eastern states of India. At the 38 SSR loci, we detected 142 alleles with a mean of 3.74 alleles per locus. The PIC values for the loci ranged from 0.25 to 0.69. The maximum genetic diversity was recorded in Eastern Plateau and Hills (I = 0.98, He = 0.52). The ANOVA analysis indicated significantly higher within-population variation (90%) than between populations (10%). The indirect estimation of gene flow (Nm) from PhiPT indicated significant gene flow among all three populations. The population structure analysis showed at least four distinct groups among the three populations with different introgression degrees. The NJ-based clustering grouped the 224 germplasm accessions into three main clusters, each with three sub-clusters. However, we did not observe distinct geographical structure among populations except some clustering among the germplasm accessions of the populations of geographically close locations. The transcriptome dataset and the SSR markers developed in the study would boost the species' molecular characterization, conservation, and specific need-based improvement.
... The flowers are reportedly pollinated by insects and wind, with a high percentage of crosspollination. The blooming time ranges from December until February orMarch[18]. ...
The Jackfruit (Artocarpus heterophyllus L.) is well-known as “poor man’s food” fruit in Bangladesh. It is widely consumed by most of the rural people and it is the national fruit of Bangladesh. The main aim of this review is to document the medicinal significance of jackfruit (Artocarpus heterophyllus L.), major parts and uses of the jackfruit in Bangladesh. This article was based on mostly a literature review. All parts of the fruit and plant are used as human food, animal feed and wood source for furniture. Although jackfruit is the main fruit of the tree, it is used as furniture for its beautiful texture and wood color. Jackfruit contains anti-bacterial, anti-diabetic, anti-oxidant, anti-inflammatory and anti-helminthic properties. The fruit is rich in carbohydrates, minerals, carboxylic acids, dietary fiber, vitamins and minerals. The seed is rich in manganese, magnesium, potassium, calcium iron and lectins and thus meets up nutritional requirements for the rural people. The present study attempted to review the medicinal importance, health-promoting effects of jackfruit and seeds with special emphasis on their applications in the food.
... As the spine of rind of syncarp is formed from the tip of perianth (the stigmatic protrusion), it was presumed that each spine of syncarp developed from a single flower with a single functional ovule. The data for the number of ovules inflorescence -1 was obtained by counting the number of spines syncarp -1 (Pushpakumara, 2006). Five randomly selected floral buds (either male or female) were tagged at the initiation stage for each aspect and observed each day. ...
Ambophily, the mixed mode of wind and insect pollination is still poorly understood, even though it has been known to science for over 130 years. While its presence has been repeatedly inferred, experimental data remain regrettably rare. No specific suite of morphological or ecological characteristics has yet been identified for ambophilous plants and their ecology and evolution remain uncertain. In this review we summarise and evaluate our current understanding of ambophily, primarily based on experimental studies. A total of 128 ambophilous species - including several agriculturally important crops - have been reported from most major habitat types worldwide, but this probably represents only a small subset of ambophilous species. Ambophilous species have evolved both from wind- and insect-pollinated ancestors, with insect-pollinated ancestors mostly representing pollination by small, generalist flower visitors. We compiled floral and reproductive traits for known ambophilous species and compared our results to traits of species pollinated either by wind or by small generalist insects only. Floral traits were found to be heterogeneous and strongly overlap especially with those of species pollinated by small generalist insects, which are also the prominent pollinator group for ambophilous plants. A few ambophilous species are only pollinated by specialised bees or beetles in addition to pollination by wind. The heterogeneity of floral traits and high similarity to generalist small insect-pollinated species lead us to conclude that ambophily is not a separate pollination syndrome but includes species belonging to different insect- as well as wind-pollination syndromes. Ambophily therefore should be regarded as a pollination mode. We found that a number of ecological factors promoted the evolution of ambophily, including avoidance of pollen limitation and self-pollination, spatial flower interference and population density. However, the individual ecological factors favouring the transition to ambophily vary among species depending on species distribution, habitat, population structure and reproductive system. Finally, a number of experimental studies in combination with observations of floral traits of living and fossil species and dated phylogenies may indicate evolutionary stability. In some clades ambophily has likely prevailed for millions of years, for example in the castanoid clade of the Fagaceae.
Jackfruit (Artocarpus heterophyllus Lam.) that belongs to the family Moraceae is an important fruit crop in Malaysia. The planting acreage of jackfruit especially cv. Tekam Yellow has increased by 17.08 % from 2014 until 2018. Jackfruit is highly nutritional with rich phytochemical composition where the flesh and seeds are used as a cooling tonic and as a remedy for overcoming the influence of alcohol in the body. The dietary fibres in jackfruit protect the colon mucous membrane by binding to and eliminating cancer causing chemicals from the colon. Despite the importance of jackfruit to human dietary, little is known about the growth and structural changes during the inflorescence and syncarp development of jackfruit. The study was conducted at a jackfruit commercial farm in Bukit Beruntung (latitude 3°25′32.7432 N; longitude 101°33′21.0240 E), Selangor, Malaysia from January to December 2017. A total of 120 inflorescences and 64 syncarps were used in this study with a randomized complete block design. The earliest phase of the inflorescence involves the development of the ovary and decision to abort or to proceed with further cell division and fruit development, known as syncarp set. In the second phase, the growth of syncarp involves primarily cell division. The third phase begins after cell division ceases. During this phase, syncarp growth continues, mostly by cell expansion, until the syncarp reaches its final size. This growth phase is more prominent and physiologically most significant because of the strong sink activity exerted by the expanding cells. Each stage of syncarp development is marked differently by its cellular activities. A comprehensive study on the phenology growth stage of jackfruit has been published by Kishore (2018). However, the study on growth stage and changes in the cellular structure of jackfruit has yet to be published. Therefore, the aim of this study was to determine growth stages and structural changes in the inflorescence and syncarp development of jackfruit cv. Tekam Yellow. Knowledge of cellular structure changes during the syncarp development is crucial especially for growers to apply proper cultivation practices at different growth stages according to industrial demands for optimum yields and profits.
A new classification and conceptual framework for plant phenology are proposed to resolve problems in describing tropical patterns. A long-term (12 yr) survey of flowering in 254 lowland tropical rain forest trees of 173 species from the La Selva Biological Station in Costa Rica showed highly diverse, irregular, and complex patterns. Analysis of this survey data relied primarily on graphical analyses that provide data representation methods rather than numerical summaries that provide data reduction methods. The classification differs from previous ones in three ways. It uses, as the primary criterion, frequency of the time series, based on explicit time and amplitude scales, so that irregular temporal sequences are revealed. It features a system of subsidiary classes based on other quantitative descriptors: regularity, duration, amplitude, date, and synchrony Finally, the conceptual framework separates patterns at each level of analysis so that adding the time series at one level produces a time series for the next higher level. Levels are hierarchical from the flower to the individual, population, and community with additional non-nested levels such as the guild. The four basic classes-continual, subannual, annual, and supra-annual-are applied to patterns at any level of analysis. The classification system provides a logical framework for quantitative description of phenological behavior leading to more standardized comparisons. Thus we can see that tropical phenology differs from temperate phenology in two major ways. In tropical species, the nature of the pattern may change from one level of analysis to the next, which is not typical of temperate species. In many tropical species, phenological patterns vary more widely over the geographic range of a species than they do in temperate species.
Temporal patterns of flower production and the level of fruit set were determined for 20 individuals each of six shrub species (four families) in a semi-deciduous lowland forest in Panama. The species were: Hybanthus prunifolius, Turnera panamensis, Rinorea sylvatica, Psychotria horizontalis. Erythrina costaricensis var. panamensis, and Pentagonia macrophylla. There were two objectives of the study: 1) to compare among species the relation between the individual's flowering pattern and the population's flowering synchrony; and 2) to compare within species the relative influence of the individual's and the population's flowering phenology on the individual's fruit set. The six species differed in number of flowers per individual (mean values for species ranged from 98-2995), how long the individual produced flowers (mean values ranged from 3.5-59.0 days), and synchrony of the individual with its conspecifics (mean values ranged from 0.48-0.95, where value of 1.0 = perfect synchrony). Among the six species, population synchrony increased as the mean duration of an individual's flowering decreased. Population synchrony of the first day, peak (median) day, and the entire flowering period were highly correlated. When comparing individuals within each species, the individual's flower number was the best predictor of fruit set. Neither the individual's length of flower production nor its synchrony with conspecifics added significantly in explaining the variance in fruit set. A regression including the individual's number of flowers, length of flower production, and synchrony with conspecifics as independent variables and the proportion fruit set (and its arcsin transformation) as the dependent variable yielded no significant regressions. The consequences of these widely varying phenological patterns are discussed. Comparisons are made with the temporal patterns observed in other tropical forests.
In three monoecious plant species the proportional allocation of resources to male or female flowers varies as a function of environmental quality. There is a tendency for the male function to be more prevalent on xeric sites and the female function to be more abundant on mesic sites. We suggest that these patterns are adaptive and may have been important in the evolution of monoecious and dioecious species.