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Carica papaya (Caricaceae): a case study into the effects of domestication on plant vegetative growth and reproduction¹

Department of Plant Biology, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York 14853 USA; College of Natural and Applied Sciences, University of Guam, UOG Station, Mangilao, Guam 96923 USA

ABSTRACT

Few studies have quantitatively evaluated the gender specific effects of cultivation on plant growth and reproduction. The availability of cultivated and wild populations of different genders of Carica papaya L. (Caricaceae) on Guam provided an opportunity to study these effects quantitatively. We compared the gender specific allometry of height vs. basal stem diameter (H vs. D), stem slenderness ratio (H/D), and the height at first flowering (H_fl) of carpellate and staminate plants growing under natural conditions (N = 150 each) with those of carpellate and hermaphroditic plants (N = 250 each) from two cultivars (Sunrise and Tainung 2). These comparisons indicated that (1) wild carpellate and staminate plants are significantly taller than either gender of the two cultivars with equivalent D; (2) the scaling exponent governing the H vs. D relationship of both genders of wild plants is significantly higher than that of either cultivated gender; (3) cultivar type does not affect the H vs. D exponent, but gender expression does; (4) gender expression (but not cultivar-type) also affects H_fl (cultivation substantially reduces carpellate plant H_fl); and (5) the onset of sexual maturity is associated with a dramatic reversal in H/D ontogeny. Cultivation therefore has "condensed" patterns of vegetative growth in a gender specific manner, whereas gender expression alters both vegetative and reproductive growth significantly more so than does cultivar-type.

Key Words: allometry • first flowering • gender expression • Guam • papaya • plant height • scaling exponents