Mismatch between pollen and pistil size causes asymmetric mechanical reproductive isolation across Phlox species

Characterizing the mechanisms of reproductive isolation (RI) between lineages is key to determining how new species are formed and maintained. In flowering plants, interactions between the reproductive organs of the flower –the pollen and the pistil– serve as the last barrier to reproduction before fertilization. As such, these pollen-pistil interactions are both complex and important for determining a suitable mate. Here, we test whether differences in style length (a part of the pistil) generate a postmating prezygotic mechanical barrier between five species of perennial Phlox wildflowers with geographically overlapping distributions. We perform controlled pairwise reciprocal crosses between three species with long styles and two species with short styles to assess crossing success (seed set). We find that heterospecific seed set is broadly reduced compared to conspecific cross success and reveal a striking asymmetry in heterospecific crosses between species with different style lengt..., , , ## Paper: Mismatch between pollen and pistil size causes asymmetric mechanical reproductive isolation across *Phlox* species

Authors: Anna F. Feller, Grace Burgin, Nia Lewis, Rohan Prabhu, Robin Hopkins

[https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.fttdz091s](https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.fttdz091s)

This dataset contains the raw data files from experiments (described in detail in the paper) to assess seed set, floral morphology, pollen size, and pollen tube growth in and between six closely related species of *Phlox* flowers, as well as the R code files used to visualize and statistically analyze these data. 

## Description of the data and file structure

**Data files:**

* ids.csv - contains information on all individuals used in the experiments to assess seed set, floral morphology, pollen size, and pollen tube growth
* *ID:* individual ID, composed of 'species abbreviation-population number-individual number'
* *species*: scientific species name (without the preceding genus name '*Phlox*...