Afif Hedhly

Centro de Investigación y Tecnología Agroalimentaria de Aragón

The sexual reproductive phase in plants might be particularly vulnerable to the effects of global warming. The direct effect of temperature changes on the reproductive process has been documented previously, and recent data from other physiological processes that are affected by rising temperatures seem to reinforce the susceptibility of the reprod...

The accumulation of starch within photosynthetic tissues and within dedicated storage organs has been extensively characterized in many species, and a function in buffering carbon availability or in fueling later growth phases, respectively, has been proposed. However, developmentally regulated starch turnover within heterotrophic tissues other tha...

In this introductory chapter, we describe male germline development in plants taking Arabidopsis thaliana as a reference species. We first describe the transition from sporophytic to germline development, then microsporogenesis including meiosis, followed by male gametophyte development prior to pollination, and finally the progamic phase culminati...

The number of male gametes is critical for reproductive success and varies between and within species. The evolutionary reduction of the number of pollen grains encompassing the male gametes is widespread in selfing plants. Here, we employ genome-wide association study (GWAS) to identify underlying loci and to assess the molecular signatures of sel...

Flowers, from their initiation in the inflorescence meristem until their opening at anthesis, are particularly sensitive to subtle changes in environmental conditions. Short episodes of either cold or heat stress experienced during stamen development may lead to varying degrees of male sterility and can affect the ploidy of the gametes. In an attem...

Self-incompatibility in Prunus species is governed by a single locus consisting of two highly multi-allelic and tightly linked genes, one coding for an F-box protein-i.e., SFB in Prunus-controlling the pollen specificity and one coding for an S-RNase gene controlling the pistil specificity. Genotyping the allelic combination in a fruit tree species...

Dormancy is an adaptive strategy in plants to survive under unfavorable climatic conditions during winter. In temperate regions, most fruit trees need exposure to a certain period of low temperatures to overcome endodormancy. After endodormancy release, exposure to warm temperatures is needed to flower (ecodormancy). Chilling and heat requirements...

Due to its formidable tools for molecular genetic studies, Arabidopsis thaliana is one of the most prominent model species in plant biology and, especially, in plant reproductive biology. However, plant morphological, anatomical, and ultrastructural analyses traditionally involve time-consuming embedding and sectioning procedures for bright field,...

The number of male gametes produced is critical for reproductive success and varies greatly between and within species 1–3 . Evolutionary reduction of male gamete production has been widely reported in plants as a hallmark of the selfing syndrome, as well as in humans. Such a reduction may simply represent deleterious decay 4–7 , but evolutionary t...

The number of male gametes produced is critical for reproductive success and varies greatly between and within species. Evolutionary reduction of male gamete production has been widely reported in plants as a hallmark of the selfing syndrome, as well as in humans. Such a reduction may simply represent deleterious decay, but evolutionary theory pred...

One of the key environmental factors affecting plant reproductive systems is temperature. Characterising such effects is especially relevant for some commercially important genera such as Citrus . In this genus, failure of fertilisation results in parthenocarpic fruit development and seedlessness, which is a much‐prized character. Here, we characte...

Anther and pollen development, being easily accessible organs within the flower, are well-characterized processes in many plant species. However, the progression of certain pre-meiotic developmental stages or the function of some tissues are still controversial and under debate. Using different whole- mount clearing and staining techniques for brig...

Homomorphic self-incompatibility is a well-studied example of a physiological process that is thought to increase population diversity and reduce the expression of inbreeding depression. Whereas theoretical models predict the presence of a large number of S-haplotypes with equal frequencies at equilibrium, unequal allele frequencies have been repea...

Sweet cherry is a self-incompatible fruit tree species in the Rosaceae. As other species in the family, sweet cherry exhibits S-RNase-based gametophytic self-incompatibility. This mechanism is genetically determined by the S-locus that encodes the pollen and pistil determinants, SFB and S-RNase, respectively. Several self-compatible sweet cherry ge...

Despite the extensive research work characterizing pollen performance in several plant species, less effort has been made to characterize it in some economically important species as Citrus, in which the failure of the sexual reproductive process, and subsequent parthenocarpic fruit development and seedlessness are prized characters. In this work w...

Research on plant responses to temperature stress is receiving increased interest due to the growing awareness about global warming. High and low temperature stresses help establish the narrow geographic distribution of some cultivated plants, the limited geographic extension of some other economically nutritionally important species, and also indu...

In this work, pea (Pisum sativum) plants exposed to increasing cadmium and copper concentrations were tested for heavy metals accumulation in flowers and for ‘in vivo’ pollen germination. Based on the Cd and Cu accumulation amounts in the flowers, an evaluation of the same metals effects on ‘in vitro’ pollen germination was achieved. Moreover, the...

Flower emasculation is commonly used to make flowers unattractive to pollinating insects and to carry out controlled pollinations. In sweet cherry, we have observed recurrent low fruit set after flower emasculation and compatible pollination without apparent causes. This led us to evaluate its effect on the progress of the reproductive phase and on...

Warm springs have often been assumed as a prelude of a good fruit set in temperate fruit tree species. However, recently, evidences have accumulated on erratic fruit set under apparently good and warm springs in Mediterranean conditions. The fact that these observations mainly occurred in sweet cherry (Prunus avium), a species adapted to high latit...

Pollen competition and selection have significant evolutionary consequences, but very little is known about how they can be modulated. We have examined in cherry (Prunus avium L.) how pollen performance is affected by the genotype of the pollen and by the environmental conditions under which it grows, namely the pistilar tissue and temperature. The...

Temperature is a major climatic factor that limits geographical distribution of plant species, and the reproductive phase has proven to be one of the most temperature-vulnerable stages. Here, we have used peach to evaluate the effect of temperature on some processes of the progamic phase, from pollination to the arrival of pollen tubes in the ovary...

Prevailing ambient temperature during the reproductive phase is one of several important factors for seed and fruit set in different plant species, and its consequences on reproductive success may increase with global warming. The effect of temperature on pollen performance was evaluated in sweet cherry (Prunus avium L.), comparing as pollen donors...

Plant reproduction is highly vulnerable to environmental conditions such as temperature and, consequently, planet warming may have significant consequences on the reproductive phase with serious implication in agricultural crops. Although pollen tube growth is clearly affected by temperature, little information is available on its effect on the fem...