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Bud development, flower phenology and life history of holoparasitic Rafflesia cantleyi

  • Regular Paper – Ecology/Ecophysiology/Environmental Biology
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Abstract

Despite being the world's largest single-flower, Rafflesia’s biology and life history are still poorly understood due to its cryptic growth strategy on Tetrastigma vines. Previous studies have been mostly short-term, contrary to Rafflesia’s long development period before blooming. Bud development and flower phenology of R. cantleyi was studied in a dipterocarp forest in Lata Jarum, Peninsular Malaysia. Seven populations, consisting of 247 buds, were monitored fortnightly for 65 months in two discrete studies between 2009 and 2018. The bud size distribution of R. cantleyi is dynamic, progressively changing from small flower buds to larger buds before flowering. Buds < 5.0 cm across had the slowest growth and highest mortality rates, while those > 15.0 cm across demonstrated accelerated growth. The bud growth profiles of the same site clustered distinctively regardless of sex with successful blooming rate that varied greatly between sites, prompting speculation about their relatedness to the sites’ physical attributes. We reported the first female-dominated population in Rafflesia’s life history. Rafflesia cantleyi’s blooming rate at Lata Jarum is moderate to high, with non-seasonal flowering phenology as evident by the lack of synchronisation and consistency between flowering and local rainfall patterns. Based on the field data of the present study and the published information of other Rafflesia species, R. cantleyi’s life cycle was estimated between 4.0 and 5.3 years. Our findings further explain Rafflesia’s biology and life history and highlight the gap in knowledge of the natural habitats on the endoparasite’s growth and fate potentially for future conservation and study.

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The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.

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Acknowledgements

We gratefully acknowledge Mohd Shukri M.A. (District Forest Office, Raub and Cameron Highland, Pahang) and Nur Syazwani M.B. for field assistance in study period I and II, respectively, and Norbet Simon for help in constructing the topographical map of the study sites. We also thank the anonymous reviewers for constructive comments to improve the quality of the manuscript. Research permissions granted by the Department of Forestry of Peninsular Malaysia, Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment, Malaysia and Pahang State Forestry Department, Malaysia, are greatly appreciated

Funding

This research was supported by the Fundamental Research Grant Scheme: FRGS/1/2015/ST03/UKM/02/1 and UKM-ST-06-FRGS015-2010 by Ministry of Higher Education Malaysia, and Malaysian Toray Science Foundation (Science & Technology Research Grant STGL-011-2008) awarded to SLW.

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  1. Department of Biological Sciences and Biotechnology, Faculty of Science and Technology, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, 43600, Bangi, Selangor Darul Ehsan, Malaysia

    Suk Ling Wee, Shwu Bing Tan & Sue Han Tan

  2. Department of Mathematical Sciences, Faculty of Science and Technology, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, 43600, Bangi, Selangor, Malaysia

    Bernard Kok Bang Lee

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  1. Suk Ling Wee
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SLW conceived and designed research; SLW, SBT and SHT collected the data; SLW and BKBT analysed the data; SLW wrote the manuscript with input from all authors. All authors read and gave final approval for publication.

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Correspondence to Suk Ling Wee.

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Wee, S.L., Tan, S.B., Tan, S.H. et al. Bud development, flower phenology and life history of holoparasitic Rafflesia cantleyi. J Plant Res (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10265-024-01522-7

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