Pollen morphology of Rutaceae from Brazilian forest fragments

ABSTRACT

This paper presents pollen morphology of 12 native Brazilian species of Rutaceae from forest fragments of São Paulo, Brazil. The aim of this research is to expand the morphological knowledge of the species, thus contributing to taxonomic knowledge and, subsequently, conservation of species and the forest area. The pollen grains were acetolyzed, measured, described qualitatively, and illustrated using light microscopy (LM) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM). The studied species have differences in polarity, size, shape, aperture and exine ornamentation of the pollen grains, confirming the eurypalynous character of Rutaceae pollen. In particular, species of Zanthoxylum L. also presented significant differences in the pollen grains, confirming the morphological variation within the genus. The quantitative data and multivariate analysis confirm the morphological description; thus, the results reinforce the importance of pollen morphology in the identification and characterization of species of Rutaceae.

KEYWORDS:

• Eurypalynous
• multivariate analysis
• palynotaxonomy
• pollen grains

Acknowledgements

The authors thank the Universidade Estadual Paulista Unesp (PROPe, RENOVE–2014/211) for the scholarship of the first author and financial support. We acknowledge Dr. D.M. Jarzen for critical review of this manuscript and helpful suggestions.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Unesp – Pró-reitoria de Pesquisa – PROPe [grant number RENOVE – 2014/211].

Notes on contributors

Fernanda Vitorete Dutra

FERNANDA VITORETE DUTRA graduated with a BSc in biological sciences from Universidade Estadual Paulista, UNESP, Faculdade de Ciências Agrárias e Veterinárias, Jaboticabal, Brazil. She is studying for an MSc in comparative biology at the Universidade de São Paulo (USP), Faculdade de Filosofia, Ciências e Letras de Ribeirão Preto, Brazil. Fernanda specialises on the palynology of the Rutaceae, Rubiaceae and Gesneriaceae.

Eduardo Custódio Gasparino

EDUARDO CUSTÓDIO GASPARINO is a professor in the Departamento of Biologia aplicada á Agropecuária of the Universidade Estadual Paulista, UNESP, Faculdade de Ciências Agrárias e Veterinárias, Jaboticabal, Brazil. He received a degree in biological sciences from the Universidade Estadual Paulista, UNESP in 2001. Eduardo also has an MSc and a PhD in plant biodiversity and environment from the Instituto de Botânica, Brazil between 2003 and 2008. His research is on the palynology of the Brazilian ecosystems, especially Cerrado and Atlantic Forest.