Angiosperm flowers reached their highest morphological diversity early in their evolutionary history

Autor(en)

Andrea M. López-Martínez, Susana Magallón, Anna Maria Louise von Balthazar-Schönenberger, Jürg Schönenberger, Hervé Sauquet, Marion Chartier

Abstrakt

Flowers are the complex and highly diverse reproductive structures of angiosperms. Because of their role in sexual reproduction, the evolution of flowers is tightly linked to angiosperm speciation and diversification. Accordingly, the quantification of floral morphological diversity (disparity) among angiosperm subgroups and through time may give important insights into the evolutionary history of angiosperms as a whole. Based on a comprehensive dataset focusing on 30 characters describing floral structure across angiosperms, we used 1201 extant and 121 fossil flowers to measure floral disparity and explore patterns of floral evolution through time and across lineages. We found that angiosperms reached their highest floral disparity in the Early Cretaceous. However, decreasing disparity toward the present likely has not precluded the innovation of other complex traits at other morphological levels, which likely played a key role in the outstanding angiosperm species richness. Angiosperms occupy specific regions of the theoretical morphospace, indicating that only a portion of the possible floral trait combinations is observed in nature. The ANA grade, the magnoliids, and the early-eudicot grade occupy large areas of the morphospace (higher disparity), whereas nested groups occupy narrower regions (lower disparity).

Organisation(en)

Department für Botanik und Biodiversitätsforschung

Externe Organisation(en)

Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico, University of New South Wales, Royal Botanic Gardens and Domain Trust Sydney

Journal

New Phytologist

Band

241

Seiten

1348-1360

Anzahl der Seiten

13

ISSN

0028-646X

DOI

https://doi.org/10.1111/nph.19389

Publikationsdatum

11-2023

Peer-reviewed

Ja

ÖFOS 2012

106008 Botanik, 106012 Evolutionsforschung, 106042 Systematische Botanik

Schlagwörter

ASJC Scopus Sachgebiete

Physiology, Plant Science

Link zum Portal

https://ucris.univie.ac.at/portal/de/publications/angiosperm-flowers-reached-their-highest-morphological-diversity-early-in-their-evolutionary-history(3377000a-7147-4f0f-8826-00d83d6d13f6).html