ArticleAnnals of botany2023
Gains and losses of the epiphytic lifestyle in epidendroid orchids: review and new analyses of succulence traits.
Article in Annals of botany, 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 7 papers.
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7 citing papers in PubMed, 10 citations in OpenAlex.
- Orchid genome evolution and trait innovation.Journal of integrative plant biology · 2026Review
- Species evolution determines epiphyte evolution in Orchids.Plant diversity · 2026Article
- Mycoheterotrophy and plastid genome evolution in the early-diverging epidendroid orchid tribe Nervilieae: independent transitions inAoB PLANTS · 2026Article
- Orchid phylogenetics and evolution: history, current status and prospects.Annals of botany · 2025Review
- Persistent Habitat Instability and Patchiness, Sexual Attraction, Founder Events, Drift and Selection: A Recipe for Rapid Diversification of Orchids.Plants (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Review
- The complete plastid genome ofMitochondrial DNA. Part B, Resources · 2025Article
- Crassulacean acid metabolism (CAM) at the crossroads: a special issue to honour 50 years of CAM research by Klaus Winter.Annals of botany · 2023Article
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4 authors at 4 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
BACKGROUND AND
aimsEpiphytism has evolved repeatedly in plants and has resulted in a considerable number of species with original characteristics. Because water supply is generally erratic compared to that in soils, succulent forms in particular are widespread in epiphytic species. However, succulent organs also exist in terrestrial plants, and the question of the concomitant evolution of epiphytism and succulence has received little attention, not even in the epidendroid orchids, which account for 67.6 % of vascular epiphytes.
methodsWe built a new time-calibrated phylogenetic tree of Epidendroideae with 203 genera treated in genus Orchidacearum, from which we reconstructed the evolution of epiphytism as well as traits related to water scarcity (stem and leaf succulence and the number of velamen layers), while testing for the correlated evolution between the two. Furthermore, we estimated the ancestral geographical ranges to evaluate the palaeoclimatic context in which epiphytism evolved. KEY
resultsEpiphytism evolved at least three times: 39.0 million years ago (Mya) in the common ancestor of the Malaxideae and Cymbidieae that probably ranged from the Neotropics to Southeast Asia and Australia, 11.5 Mya in the Arethuseae in Southeast Asia and Australia, and 7.1 Mya in the neotropical Sobralieae, and it was notably lost in the Malaxidiinae, Collabieae, Calypsoeae, Bletiinae and Eulophiinae. Stem succulence is inferred to have evolved once, in a terrestrial ancestor at least 4.1 Mya before the emergence of epiphytic lineages. If lost, stem succulence was almost systematically replaced by leaf succulence in epiphytic lineages.
conclusionsEpiphytism may have evolved in seasonally dry forests during the Eocene climatic cooling, among stem-succulent terrestrial orchids. Our results suggest that the emergence of stem succulence in early epidendroids was a key innovation in the evolution of epiphytism, facilitating the colonization of epiphytic environments that later led to the greatest diversification of epiphytic orchids.
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