Spatiotemporal niche overlap, asymmetric reproductive interference, and population genetics between the sympatric species, Rhododendron diversipilosum and Rhododendron subarcticum, in alpine fellfield habitat

Reproductive interference between sympatric-related species often causes adverse impacts on rare species, which increases the risk of local extinction, particularly in small and isolated populations. To evaluate the congeneric interactions in alpine plants, we compared the ecological and genetic properties and assessed the reproductive interference between tetraploid Rhododendron diversipilosum (widespread species) and diploid Rhododendron subarcticum (rare species in alpine fellfields) in northern Japan. In alpine fellfields, R. diversipilosum is commonly distributed close to shrubby patches, whereas R. subarcticum tends to grow in more exposed places, although they are sometimes mixed. R. subarcticum initiated flowering one week earlier; however, the flowering periods overlapped between species, indicating incomplete phenological isolation. The pollination experiment showed that both species were self-incompatible. Furthermore, heterospecific pollination occurred only for R. subarcticum; however, hybrid seeds seldom germinated. These results indicate that reproductive interference is asymmetric between species, where only the rare R. subarcticum may suffer from heterospecific pollination. Genetic analysis showed that R. subarcticum populations had lower genetic diversity but higher divergence among populations than R. diversipilosum. Although spatiotemporal niche separations may mitigate reproductive interference, the risk of local extinction could be higher in R. subarcticum populations because of isolated distributions with low genetic diversity.