ArticleProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America2008
Novelties of the flowering plant pollen tube underlie diversification of a key life history stage.
Article in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 2008. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 55 papers.
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55 citing papers in PubMed, 146 citations in OpenAlex.
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- Pulsed evolution shaped extant angiosperm pollen disparity.Nature communications · 2026Article
- The phylotranscriptomic profile of angiosperm seed development follows a reverse hourglass pattern.The Plant cell · 2025Article
- Hyperoside, a flavonoid, inducesScience advances · 2025Article
- Ovule development and pollen tube growth in Tsuga chinensis: insights into the evolution of siphonogamy.Plant cell reports · 2025Article
- Sexual reproduction in land plants: an evolutionary perspective.Plant reproduction · 2025Review
- A seasonal strategy for pollen tube growth and ovule development to overcome winter in Japanese stone oak (Lithocarpus edulis).Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Characterization of pollen tube development in distant hybridization of Chinese cork oak (Quercus variabilis L.).Planta · 2023Article
- Fatty Acid Composition of Dry and Germinating Pollen of Gymnosperm and Angiosperm Plants.International journal of molecular sciences · 2023Article
- The transcription factor PbrbZIP52 positively affects pear pollen tube longevity by promoting callose synthesis.Plant physiology · 2023Article
- Evolutionary analysis of the LORELEI gene family in plants reveals regulatory subfunctionalization.Plant physiology · 2022Article
- Self-shrinking soft demoulding for complex high-aspect-ratio microchannels.Nature communications · 2022Article
- Development of Quercus acutissima (Fagaceae) pollen tubes inside pistils during the sexual reproduction process.Planta · 2022Article
- Delayed fertilization facilitates flowering time diversity in Fagaceae.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2021Article
- Two Is Company, but Four Is a Party-Challenges of Tetraploidization for Cell Wall Dynamics and Efficient Tip-Growth in Pollen.Plants (Basel, Switzerland) · 2021Review
- Two Carbohydrate-Based Natural Extracts StimulateFrontiers in plant science · 2021Article
- Establishment of a Live-Imaging Analysis for Polarized Growth of Conchocelis in the Multicellular Red AlgaFrontiers in plant science · 2021Article
- Insights into the molecular control of cross-incompatibility in Zea mays.Plant reproduction · 2020Review
- Transcriptomic and Proteomic Insights intoPlant physiology · 2020Article
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1 author at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
The origin and rapid diversification of flowering plants has puzzled evolutionary biologists, dating back to Charles Darwin. Since that time a number of key life history and morphological traits have been proposed as developmental correlates of the extraordinary diversity and ecological success of angiosperms. Here, I identify several innovations that were fundamental to the evolutionary lability of angiosperm reproduction, and hence to their diversification. In gymnosperms pollen reception must be near the egg largely because sperm swim or are transported by pollen tubes that grow at very slow rates (< approximately 20 microm/h). In contrast, pollen tube growth rates of taxa in ancient angiosperm lineages (Amborella, Nuphar, and Austrobaileya) range from approximately 80 to 600 microm/h. Comparative analyses point to accelerated pollen tube growth rate as a critical innovation that preceded the origin of the true closed carpel, long styles, multiseeded ovaries, and, in monocots and eudicots, much faster pollen tube growth rates. Ancient angiosperm pollen tubes all have callosic walls and callose plugs (in contrast, no gymnosperms have these features). The early association of the callose-walled growth pattern with accelerated pollen tube growth rate underlies a striking repeated pattern of faster and longer-distance pollen tube growth often within solid pathways in phylogenetically derived angiosperms. Pollen tube innovations are a key component of the spectacular diversification of carpel (flower and fruit) form and reproductive cycles in flowering plants.
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