ArticleProceedings. Biological sciences2017
How (much) do flowers vary? Unbalanced disparity among flower functional modules and a mosaic pattern of morphospace occupation in the order Ericales.
Article in Proceedings. Biological sciences, 2017. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 18 papers.
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Who cites it
18 citing papers in PubMed.
- Floral syndromes in Aquilegia (Ranunculaceae) are associated with nectar- but not pollen-collecting pollinators.Annals of botany · 2026Article
- Genome duplications, genomic conflict, and rapid phenotypic evolution characterize the Cretaceous radiation of Fagales.Journal of integrative plant biology · 2025Article
- The Sequential Direct and Indirect Effects of Mountain Uplift, Climatic Niche, and Floral Trait Evolution on Diversification Dynamics in an Andean Plant Clade.Systematic biology · 2024Article
- Potential of reproductive traits in functional ecology: A quantitative comparison of variability in floral, fruit, and leaf traits.Ecology and evolution · 2024Article
- Disparity of cycad leaves dispels the living fossil metaphor.Communications biology · 2024Article
- Angiosperm flowers reached their highest morphological diversity early in their evolutionary history.The New phytologist · 2024Article
- Evolution of phenotypic disparity in the plant kingdom.Nature plants · 2023Article
- Genome diploidization associates with cladogenesis, trait disparity, and plastid gene evolution.Plant physiology · 2022Article
- Exceptional evolutionary lability of flower-like inflorescences (pseudanthia) in Apiaceae subfamily Apioideae.American journal of botany · 2022Article
- Exploring the diversity of andean berries from northern Peru based on molecular analyses.Heliyon · 2022Article
- Phylogenomic conflict coincides with rapid morphological innovation.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2021Article
- Global patterns and a latitudinal gradient of flower disparity: perspectives from the angiosperm order Ericales.The New phytologist · 2021Article
- Origin of horsetails and the role of whole-genome duplication in plant macroevolution.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2019Article
- Evolutionary constraints on disparity of ericaceous pollen grains.Annals of botany · 2019Article
- Beyond buzz-pollination - departures from an adaptive plateau lead to new pollination syndromes.The New phytologist · 2019Article
- Why are the seed cones of conifers so diverse at pollination?Annals of botany · 2018Article
- The ancestral flower of angiosperms and its early diversification.Nature communications · 2017Article
- Recent advances in understanding the roles of whole genome duplications in evolution.F1000Research · 2017Review
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7 authors.
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Abstract
The staggering diversity of angiosperms and their flowers has fascinated scientists for centuries. However, the quantitative distribution of floral morphological diversity (disparity) among lineages and the relative contribution of functional modules (perianth, androecium and gynoecium) to total floral disparity have rarely been addressed. Focusing on a major angiosperm order (Ericales), we compiled a dataset of 37 floral traits scored for 381 extant species and nine fossils. We conducted morphospace analyses to explore phylogenetic, temporal and functional patterns of disparity. We found that the floral morphospace is organized as a continuous cloud in which most clades occupy distinct regions in a mosaic pattern, that disparity increases with clade size rather than age, and that fossils fall in a narrow portion of the space. Surprisingly, our study also revealed that among functional modules, it is the androecium that contributes most to total floral disparity in Ericales. We discuss our findings in the light of clade history, selective regimes as well as developmental and functional constraints acting on the evolution of the flower and thereby demonstrate that quantitative analyses such as the ones used here are a powerful tool to gain novel insights into the evolution and diversity of flowers.
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