Fruits, and Reproduction Reviewer:

Reproduction:
To produce offspring that have identical copies of the parental genes
Generating new individuals that are genetically different from the parents
A plant that has been able to survive and grow to reproductive maturity is relatively well
adapted to its location, so any progeny (offspring) that are genetically identical to it are
as well adapted
If environment is stable: its selectively advantageous for an organism to reproduce
asexually (can reproduce by itself) by budding or sending out runners/stolon
If the environment and climate is not stable, then the identical offspring would be
poorly adapted and all may die; sexual reproduction would serve better because it
would provide enough diversity of progeny that at least some are well adapted
Sexual Reproduction:
Progeny (offspring) are genetically diverse
Some are less adapted than the parent but others are more adapted
Offspring cannot colonize a new site as rapidly because not all progeny are adapted for
it, but some can colonize different sited with characteristics not suitable for parents
Changes in habit may adversely affect some progeny, but others may be adapted to the
new conditions
Isolated individuals cannot reproduce
Advantage: Diversity
Disadvantage: Two plants are required and sex cells must move from one plant to
another, pollen may be carried by wind, insects, or birds but this leads to loss of may
pollen grains and need to produce nectar, at times, pollens cannot be scattered in plants
that are too high
Asexual Reproduction:
All progeny are identical genetically to parent and each other
All are as adapted as parent is, but none is more adapted than the other
Rapid colonization of a new site is possible
All may be adversely affected by even minor changes in the habitat
Even isolated individuals can reproduce
Advantage: can reproduce any time, self-fertile
Disadvantage: No diversity, not capable of long-distance dispersal
Seeds:
Produced by sexual reproduction
Capable of long-distance dispersal: can be eaten and defecated, carried by winds: Seeds
may land on different sites but some seeds will land in sites that they are well adapted
to
In asexual reproduction, runners, rhizomes and plantlets can only become adapted to
the SAME environment as their parent
Asexual Reproduction (within angiosperms):
Fragmentation: a large spreading or vining plant grows to several meters in length, and
individual parts become self-sufficient by establishing adventitious roots. If middle
portions of the plant die, the ends become separated and act as individuals
Plantlets that looks like a bulb: bulbils
In willows and many thistles: adventitious shoot buds form on roots and grow into
plant; a small cluster of trees may in fact consist of just a single individual
Sexual Reproduction:
In angiosperms, this involves flowers, which produces the necessary cells and structures
Plant Life Cycle
- Sporophyte phase/generation: trees, shrubs and herbs. Sporophytes are always
diploid and they have sex organs (flowers in angiosperms)
- Cells of sporophytes are capable of meiosis: in plants, this results in haploid spores
- Gametes in animals: gametes can fuse with other gametes in fertilization producing
a diploid zygote. A gamete that doesnt undergo syngamy dies.
- Spores in plants: cannot undergo syngamy, but each undergoes mitosis and grows
into an entire new haploid plant called a gametophyte
- Gameto (gametes) phyte(plant): its a plant that produces gametes
- During sexual reproduction, sporophytes dont produce diploid plants but haploid
plants called gametophytes (ex: hornworts, liverworts, and mosses)
- Gametes are formed by haploid plants by mitosis, not meiosis
- Gametes then undergo syngamy and forms a zygote that grows into a new diploid
sporophyte and life cycle is complete
Gametes:
- Mamalian gametes: sperm cells and egg cells
- Oogamy: sperms are produced by the male (stamen) and eggs are produced by the
female, aka the pistil
- Two types of gametophytes: microspore and megaspore
- Microgametophytes: male (pollen grains) from microspores
- Megagametophytes: female from megaspores
- Heterospory: having two types of spores
- Megaspore and megagametophyte are never released from the flower of the parent
sporophyte
- After the sperm cell feritilizes the egg, the new egg cell is diploid. It develops into a new
sporophyte, as the embryo in an immature seed. Ovule develops into a seed, and the
ovary develops into a fruit
- Alternation of generations: a life cycle with two generations, sporophyte and
gametophyte
- Heteromorphic generations: gametophytes do not resemble sporophytes at all; complex
with at least three distinct plants (1 sporo and 2 game)
Flower Structure:
Flowers never become woody!! No vascular cambium
Pedicel: flower stalk
Flower parts are attached: receptacle
Four type of floral appendages: sepals, petals, stamen and carpel(pistil)
Flowers can have 3,4, or 5 appendages of each type
Complete flower: has all four types Incomplete flower: missing one or two
Sepals: lowermost and outermost of the four appendages. They are modified leaves that
surround and enclose the other flower parts as they mature. They are usually the
thickest and waxiest of the flower parts and they are to protect the flower bud as it
develops. They are colorful to attract pollinators. All the sepals together constitute the
calyx
- Petals: above the sepals on the receptacle, which together make up the corolla.
Leaf-like being broad and flat and thin but contain pigments other than
chlorophyll and have fewer or no fibers, and tend to be thinner and more
delicate
- Perianth: sepals and petals together
- Petals are to attract the right kind of pollinators: flowers of each plant have
distinct sizes, shape and color allowing pollinators to recognize specific species.
Petals also have pigments that absorb ultraviolet light, creating patterns only
insects could see
- Wind-pollinated species typically do not have petals because they do not need to
attract any pollinators
Stamen: known collectively as androecium. Male part of flower that produces pollen.
But it is not the male part because only gametes and gametophytes have sex
- Stamens: made up of the stalk, filament, and the anther where pollen is
produced
- As part of the sporophyte, the anther is composed of diploid cells, and in each
anther, four columns of tissue become distinct as some cells enlarge and prepare
for meiosis
- These columns are called microspore mother cells/ microsporocytes: enlarge
and undergo meiosis, producing four microspores ( gametophyte)
- Tapetum: neighboring anther cells that nurse the developing microspore
- Microspores form together in a tetrad but later separate and form an especially
resistant wall; now then called pollen!!
- Anthers open (dehisce) and release the pollen
- Pollen grains wall is a cell wall composed of the inner layer called intine
(cellulose) and outer layer called exine (sporopollenin)
- Sporopollenin: water proof and resistant to almost all chemicals
- Exine can have ridges, bumps, and spines that each species has its own particular
pattern
Carpel: constitute the gynoecium, located at the highest level on the receptacle,
somewhat leaf-like
- Three parts: Stigma, style, and the ovary
- Stigma: sticky part that catches the pollen
- Style: elevates the stigma into useful position, where pollen grows its tube to
reach the ovary
- Ovary: where megaspores are produced
- Pistil: carpel fused together into a single compound structure
- Inside the ovary are placentae (a): bear ovules: the ovule is attached to the
placenta by the funiculus (contains xylem and phloem)
- Ovules have short stalk, funiculus which carries water and nutrients from the
placenta to the ovule by small vascular bundle and central mass of parenchyma
called nucellus with just one megasporocyte. The integuments surround the
nucellus
- Megaspore mother cells/ megasporocytes: the ovule enlarge and prepare for
meiosis; three degenerate and one becomes large by absorbing the other three.
Megaspores differ from microspores in that they remain enclosed inside the
carpel
- An ovule develops into a seed while the ovary develops into a fruit
- Each ovary might have either one or many placentae, bearing one or many
ovules
Gametophytes
Microgametophyte
Microspores develop into microgametophytes
In angiosperms, m.g. is very small and simple consisting of at most three cells within the
original pollen cell wall
The microspore nucleus migrate to the side of the pollen grain and lies next to the wall
where it divides mitotically producing a large vegetative cell and small lens-shaped
generative cell, which divides into 2 sperm cells (microgametes)
The veg. cell and sperm cells now consist of a full-fledged plant
In majority of angiosperms, the pollen is released from the anther at about the time the
generative cell has formed, and sperm cells arent produced till the pollen reaches the
stigma
When a pollen lands on a stigma, it germinates by producing a pollen tube, which
penetrates into the loose, open tissues of the stigma
The pollen tube (microgametophyte) absorbs nutrients from the stigma and grows
downward through the style toward the ovary, carrying with it the sperm cells
Megagametophyte:
Within the ovule, the surviving megaspore develops into a megagametophyte
Embryo sac: multinucleate megagametophyte
Large, egiht nucleate megaspore becomes a megag. With seven cells, one of which is
binucleate: One large central cell with two polar nuclei, three small antipodal cells, and
an egg apparatus consisting of two synergids and an egg (megamete)
The megag. Is a distinct plant and obtains all of its nutrients from the parent sporophyte
Fertilization: syngamy of sperm and egg
Plasmogamy: fusion of the protoplasts of the gametes
Karyogamy: fusion of the nuclei
The pollen tube is guided to the microphyle (small hole of ovule) and penetrates the
cucellus and reaches the egg apparatus and enter one synergid. The pollen tube bursts
and releases both sperm cells, one of which migrates through the synergid protoplasm
toward the egg. Sperm nucleus enters the eggs and fuses with the egg nucleus
establishing a diploid zygote nucleus. Because the sperm sheds its protoplasm, it
contributes only its nucleus with the set of nuclear genes during karyogamy. Organellar
genes are always inherited from the ovule parent!
In gymnosperms, the sperm retains its nucleus and plastids, destroying their
mitochondria. The zygote inherits mitochondria and nucleus from the egg, and nucleus
and plastids from the sperm
In angiosperms only, the other cell goes to the central cell and undergoes karyogamy
with both the polar nuclei, establishing a large endosperm nucleus that is triploid (3 full
sets of genes)
Double Fertilization: both sperm nuclei underwent fusions
Endosperm nucleus initiates a dynamic cytoplasm and the central cell enlarges
enormously into a huge cell with thousands of nuclei
Endosperm: coenocytic and cellular tissue that nourishes the development of the zygote
Embryo and Seed Development:
Zygote grows into the embryo proper, and other parts become a short stalk-like
structure called the suspensor, which pushes the embryo deep into the endosperm
Cells at one end of the suspensor continue to divide mitotically, developing into an
embryo
Globular Stage: cells 1
st
arranged as a small sphere. The suspensor initiates 2 primordia
that grow into two cotyledons in dicots, only one grows out in monocots
Heart shape stage: the cotyledon primordial give the embryo a heart shape\
Torpedo Stage: embryo is an elongate cylinder: radicle (embryonic root) epicotyl
(embryonic stem) and hypocotyl (root/shoot junction)
Vascular tissues differentiates within the embryo
Albuminous Seed: a mature seed in which endosperm is rather abundant (monocots)
Exalbuminous Seed: if endosperm is sparse or absent at maturity (dicots)
Embryo and endosperm develop from the zygote and megagametophyte central cell.
Syngergids and antipodals break down in most species
The nucellus is crushed by expansion of the embryo, and the integuments that surround
the nucellus expand and mature into the seed coat/testa
Seed coat may become sclerenchymatous and tough
Fruit Development:
Ovary develops into the fruits; stigma, style, sepals, petals and stamens usually wither
away
Three layers: exocarp (outer layer/skin/peel), mesocarp (flesh) and endocarp (innermost
layer, may be tough or may be thin)
Pericarp: entire fruit wall, whether composed of 1,2, or 3 layers
Pollination
Flowers are also involved in effective dispersal of pollen and seeds
Numerous mechanisms of dispersal: numerous types of flowers and fruits exist
Cross-pollination: pollination of a carpel by pollen from a different individual
Self-pollination: pollination of a carpel by pollen from the same flower or another flower
of the same plant
Cross pollination bring about genetic diversity, at least a few of which may be better
adapted than either parent
Self-pollination is about the same as asexual reproduction because all genes come from
the same parent; is useful when plant is isolated by distance or lack of pollinators
Self-fertilization in flowers that both have stamen and carpels is prevented if anthers
and stigmas mature at different times
Exposed pollens can only live briefly: susceptible to desiccation and ultraviolet rays
Self-pollination is inhibited by compatibility barriers, chemical rxns b/w pollen and
carpels that prevent pollen growth; in self-pollination, all pollen tube genes match those
of the stigma


Flower Structure:
Essential organs: stamen and carpel: produce critically important spores
Nonessential organs: petals and sepals; they do not produce spores
Imperfect and Incomplete flowers: flowers that lack either or both essential organs
Perfect flowers: If flower has both essential organs even if sepal or petal or both are
missing
Dioecious species: individuals that produce only staminate flowers (male) or
carpellate/pistillate flowers
Monoecious species: having staminate flowers and carpellate flowers on the same plant
Dioecy: extreme adaptation that ensures cross-pollination: one type of spore cannot
pollinate itself
Kinds of Pollination:
Animal Pollination: flower color, size, shape, fragrance, and nectar attract animals such
as insects and increase the probability of a pollen grain landing the right stigma
- Coevolution: a flower becoming adapted for visitation by a particular insect and
the insect for efficient exploitation of the flower (flower w/ birds, flower w/ bats)
- Actinomorphic/Regular: Any longitudinal cut through the middle produces two
halves that are mirror images of each other
- Bilateral Symmetry: Only one longitudinal plane produces symmetry
- Zygomorphic: flowers and pollinators have coevolved in such a way that the
flowers are now also bilaterally symmetrical. Advantage of this is that a
pollinator can feed from the flower in one orientation, assuring that the pollen
will be placed on the stigma if it goes on another flower of the same species
- Widely scattered, rare individuals must rely on animal pollination
Wind-pollinated flowers: Attracting pollinators is not necessary and thus, mutations that
prevent petal formation is advantageous.
- The chance of any particular pollen grain landing on a compatible stigma is small,
so huge numbers of grain are produced
- Large, feathery stigmas are adaptive by increasing the area that can catch pollen
grains
Inflorescensces and Pollination:
Reproductive success is measured in terms of the number of healthy, viable seedlings
that become established
Large flowers: expensive and greater chance of being eaten by herbivores
Inflorescence: Arrangement of flowers in a plant; give collective visual signal to
pollinators
Determinate inflorescence: only a limited potential for growth because the
inflorescence apex is converted into a flower; terminal flower opens first, then lower
ones open successively
Indeterminate inflourescence: the lowest or outermost flowers open first, and even
while these flowers open, new flowers are still being initiated at the apex
Fruit Types and Seed Dispersal
Fruits are adaptations that result in the protection and distribution of seeds
Fruits that are tough and full of fibers are sclereids: expensive and heavy
Fruits can have parts that are protective, others attractive, and still allowing germination
Agents of Disperal
Agent Descriptive Term
Animals Zoochory
Attached to animal Epizochory
Eaten by an animal Endozoochory
Birds Ornithochory
Mammals Mammaliochory
Bats Chiropterochory
Ants Myrmecochory
Wind Anemochory
Water HYdrochory
Dispersed by the plant itself Autochory

Pericarp refers to the tissues of the fruit regardless of the origin
True fruit: used to refer to fruits containing only ovarian tisuue
Accessory fruit/ False Fruit: fruits with nonovarian tissues present such as receptacle
Simple Fruit: develops from a single ovary or fused ovaries of one flower; most common
Aggregate Fruit: separate carpels of one gynoecium fuse during development ex: raspb.
Mulitple Fruit: during development, all of the individual fruits of an inflorescence fuse
into one fruit ex: figs, mulberries, and pineapple








Classification of fruit types
Dry vs. Fleshy Fruits