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Defense mutualisms enhance plant diversification.

Marjorie G Weber1, Anurag A Agrawal2

  • 1Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY 14853 mgweber@ucdavis.edu.

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
|October 29, 2014
PubMed
Summary

Plants with extrafloral nectaries (EFNs) that attract animal defenders show twofold higher diversification rates. This suggests defense mutualisms enhance plant evolutionary success and diversity across lineages.

Keywords:
extrafloral nectarieslineage diversification ratesmutualismplant defenseplant–insect interactions

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Area of Science:

  • Ecology
  • Evolutionary Biology
  • Botany

Background:

  • Mutualistic relationships with animal defenders are hypothesized to influence plant evolutionary success, affecting extinction and speciation.
  • Previous testing of this hypothesis was limited by a lack of phenotypic and phylogenetic data.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To test the hypothesis that defense mutualisms, specifically through extrafloral nectaries (EFNs), consistently enhance plant diversification across lineages.
  • To investigate the macroevolutionary impact of plant-animal mutualisms on plant diversity.

Main Methods:

  • Global analysis of vascular plant families with and without extrafloral nectaries (EFNs).
  • Trait-dependent diversification models applied to six distantly related plant clades.
  • Reversible-jump Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) to model rate shifts.

Main Results:

  • Plant families with EFNs exhibit twofold higher diversification rates compared to families lacking them.
  • Lineages with EFNs consistently show increased diversification rates across different clades and methods.
  • EFN evolution is associated with an increased number of positive rate shifts, suggesting a role as diversification facilitators.

Conclusions:

  • Defense mutualisms, facilitated by EFNs, promote increased diversification rates in plants.
  • Mutualistic interactions with animals significantly impact macroevolutionary patterns and enhance plant diversity.
  • EFNs appear to be key innovations that drive plant diversification.