ArticleNature communications2024
Convergent evolution of fern nectaries facilitated independent recruitment of ant-bodyguards from flowering plants.
Article in Nature communications, 2024. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 3 papers.
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
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Who cites it
3 citing papers in PubMed.
- Near chromosome-level genome assembly of Neomusotima conspurcatalis gives insights into the evolution of moth genome architecture and fern-insect interactions.G3 (Bethesda, Md.) · 2026Article
- Article
- Mutualism and division of labour: a mutual expansion of concepts.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2025Review
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Authors and funding
3 authors.
Funding
Abstract
Plant-herbivore interactions reciprocally influence species' evolutionary trajectories. These interactions have led to many physical and chemical defenses across the plant kingdom. Some plants have even evolved indirect defense strategies to outsource their protection to ant bodyguards by bribing them with a sugary reward (nectar). Identifying the evolutionary processes underpinning these indirect defenses provide insight into the evolution of plant-animal interactions. Using a cross-kingdom, phylogenetic approach, we examined the convergent evolution of ant-guarding nectaries across ferns and flowering plants. Here, we discover that nectaries originated in ferns and flowering plants concurrently during the Cretaceous, coinciding with the rise of plant associations in ants. While nectaries in flowering plants evolved steadily through time, ferns showed a pronounced lag of nearly 100 My between their origin and subsequent diversification in the Cenozoic. Importantly, we find that as ferns transitioned from the forest floor into the canopy, they secondarily recruited ant bodyguards from existing ant-angiosperm relationships.
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