The Effects of Dispersal and Pollination on Plantaginaceae Diversification
Abstract
The rich diversity of flowering plants can be explained by a variety of mechanisms, including geographical distribution, range expansion, and floral variance, which correlates with different biotic pollination forms. Plantaginaceae is an ideal model to examine these mechanisms providing the angiosperm diversity, as the family has diverse distribution patterns both in the Old World and the New World, and the family has representatives of many different pollination syndromes.
Using molecular phylogenetics, ancestral reconstructions, and phylogenetic modeling and hypothesis testing, this study aimed to investigate the factors affecting the macroevolution of the angiosperm family Plantaginaceae. With 683 species from 72 genera, and a total of 6996 characters from 5 different molecular markers, the phylogenetic reconstruction revealed that Plantaginaceae have 12 strongly supported monophyletic tribes. The family was inferred to have a New World origin, and experienced several long-distance dispersal events between the Old World and the New World. In some cases, these long-distance dispersals were linked to chromosome number changes in the family. Sympatric speciation was shown to be a significant diversification mode in the family, which had some heterogeneity in terms of speciation rates among the tribes. These diversification patterns were not correlated with geographic distribution, as diversification rates in the Old World and the New World were similar. However, long-distance dispersals are found to be the main drivers of speciation within the family. Lastly, pollination was shown to have no effect on diversification in the tribe Antirrhineae
In summary, this study investigated the diversification patterns within the diverse angiosperm family Plantaginaceae. Since its origin in the New World approximately 48.81 mya, the family has experienced several long-distance dispersal events between the Old World and the New World. Along with the changes in chromosome numbers, long-distance dispersal was found to be a strong contributor to the diversity in the family.
Description
Keywords
Botany, Ecology
Citation
Ogutcen, E. (2016). The Effects of Dispersal and Pollination on Plantaginaceae Diversification (Doctoral thesis, University of Calgary, Calgary, Canada). Retrieved from https://prism.ucalgary.ca. doi:10.11575/PRISM/28100