ArticleAnnals of botany2018
Evolution of nectar spur length in a clade of Linaria reflects changes in cell division rather than in cell expansion.
Article in Annals of botany, 2018. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 10 papers.
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Who cites it
10 citing papers in PubMed, 22 citations in OpenAlex.
- Evolution of petal patterning: blooming floral diversity at the microscale.The New phytologist · 2025Review
- Climatic and edaphic niche shifts during plant radiation in the Mediterranean biodiversity hotspot.Annals of botany · 2025Article
- The cellular and molecular basis of the spur development inHorticulture research · 2024Article
- The genome sequence of the common toadflax,Wellcome open research · 2023Article
- How do you build a nectar spur? A transcriptomic comparison of nectar spur development inFrontiers in plant science · 2023Article
- De novo transcriptome sequencing of Impatiens uliginosa and the analysis of candidate genes related to spur development.BMC plant biology · 2022Article
- Micro- and Macroscale Patterns of Petal Morphogenesis inFrontiers in plant science · 2021Article
- Cell number explains the intraspecific spur-length variation in anPlant diversity · 2019Article
- Developmental mechanisms involved in the diversification of flowers.Nature plants · 2019Review
- The botanical multiverse of Peter Barlow.Communicative & integrative biology · 2019Review
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Authors and funding
3 authors at 1 institution in 2 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Background and Aims: Nectar spurs (tubular outgrowths of a floral organ which contain, or give the appearance of containing, nectar) are hypothesized to be a 'key innovation' which can lead to rapid speciation within a lineage, because they are involved in pollinator specificity. Despite the ecological importance of nectar spurs, relatively little is known about their development. We used a comparative approach to investigate variation in nectar spur length in a clade of eight Iberian toadflaxes. Methods: Spur growth was measured at the macroscopic level over time in all eight species, and growth rate and growth duration compared. Evolution of growth rate was reconstructed across the phylogeny. Within the clade we then focused on Linaria becerrae and Linaria clementei, a pair of sister species which have extremely long and short spurs, respectively. Characterization at a micromorphological level was performed across a range of key developmental stages to determine whether the difference in spur length is due to differential cell expansion or cell division. Key Results: We detected a significant difference in the evolved growth rates, while developmental timing of both the initiation and the end of spur growth remained similar. Cell number is three times higher in the long spurred L. becerrae compared with L. clementei, whereas cell length is only 1.3 times greater. In addition, overall anisotropy of mature cells is not significantly different between the two species. Conclusions: We found that changes in cell number and therefore in cell division largely explain evolution of spur length. This contrasts with previous studies in Aquilegia which have found that variation in nectar spur length is due to directed cell expansion (anisotropy) over variable time frames. Our study adds to knowledge about nectar spur development in a comparative context and indicates that different systems may have evolved nectar spurs using disparate mechanisms.
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