Why do flowers wilt? Flower wilting enables plants to salvage resources from flowers and re-use these resources for subsequent reproduction

As flowers age, their petals commonly wilt, with changes in colour, loss of turgor and transfer of constituents to other parts of their plant, and such flower wilting may be advantageous to a plant because it allows resources originally allocated to a flower to be resorbed and reused elsewhere with consequent benefits in terms of plant reproduction. Working with a perennial plant species, we directly verified, for the first time, that plants may benefit from salvaging resources from wilting flowers and re-using these resources for subsequent reproduction. However, contrary to expectation, plants did not re-use such resources from wilted flowers for reproduction during the current flowering period, by either the same flowers or other flowers on the same plant. Instead, they used these resources to promote reproduction during subsequent flowering, through resource transfer from wilting flowers to underground corms and roots, which were sources of resources necessary for subsequent floweri..., See Pyke, Ren & Kalman 2023, , # Why do flowers wilt? [https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.905qftts6](https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.905qftts6) ## Description of the data and file structure *Experimental protocols* Experiments were designed to compare plants on which flowers wilted naturally with plants where some or all flowers were manipulated such that they had minimal or no wilting. However, this was achieved differently for the three experimental years. Experiments were specifically designed to test Hypotheses 1, 2 and 3 in 2019, 2018 and 2020 respectively. Hypothesis 1: Re-use of salvaged resources from wilted flowers by the same flowers (2019 experiments; Fig. 2 H1). The 2019 experiments were designed as follows to test hypothesis 1 that resources, salvaged by a plant during a flowering season when its flowers wilt, are reused by the plant during that season for reproduction by the same flowers. For one group of plants (i.e., R-plants), petals were removed from all flowers when they reached age 6 day, thus pr...随着花朵衰老，其花瓣通常会出现萎蔫现象，伴随色泽改变、膨压（turgor）丧失以及养分向植株其他部位转运。此类花朵萎蔫对植株可能具有适应性意义：原本分配给花朵的养分可被重吸收（resorbed）并重新利用于其他生理过程，进而对植株繁殖产生积极效益。本研究以某多年生植物为实验材料，首次直接证实植株可通过回收萎蔫花朵中的养分并将其重新用于后续繁殖而获益。然而，与预期相悖的是，植株并未在当季开花期内利用萎蔫花朵回收的养分进行繁殖——无论是同一花朵或是同株上的其他花朵均未如此。相反，植株通过将萎蔫花朵中的养分转运至地下球茎（corms）与根系（这些器官可为后续开花提供必要养分），将这些养分用于促进下一轮开花的繁殖过程……详见Pyke、Ren与Kalman 2023，#为何花朵会萎蔫？ https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.905qftts6 ## 数据与文件结构说明 *实验方案* 实验旨在对比两类植株：一类花朵自然萎蔫，另一类通过人工处理使部分或全部花朵几乎不萎蔫或完全不萎蔫。不过，三年实验的具体实现方式有所不同。 本实验分别于2019、2018及2020年开展，以对应验证假说1、假说2与假说3。 假说1：同一朵花可重复利用其自身从萎蔫花朵中回收的养分（2019年实验；图2 H1）。 2019年实验设计如下，以验证假说1：植株在当季开花期从萎蔫花朵中回收的养分，可在当季被该植株用于同一花朵的繁殖过程。 针对一组植株（即R植株），当所有花朵开放至第6天时，摘除其花瓣，以此pr...