Nutrient content of Abutilon theophrasti seeds and the competitive ability of the resulting plants

Summary

Siblings of Abutilon theophrasti, were grown on a nutrient gradient. The plants grown at higher nutrient levels were larger and produced larger and more seeds than plants grown at lower soil nutrient concentrations. There were no differences in germinability of seeds, but the competitive abilities of resulting plants were markedly different.

In two different competition experiments designed to eliminate the effects of genotype, seed size, and germination time, by using synchronously germinated seedlings derived from similar size seed from plants grown at different nutrient levels, we found that plants from seeds produced at higher nutrient levels consistently, outperformed plants from seeds produced at the lower nutrient levels. The dominance of seeds produced at higher nutrient levels may be explained by the fact that they had markedly higher concentrations of nitrogen than did seeds produced at lower soil nutrient levels. The additional advantage of increased seed quality to plants controlling more of the nutrient resource than their neighbors would be expected to accelerate their contributions to the gene pool of the population.