Dodd, Michael E.; Silvertown, Jonathan and Chase, Mark W.
(1999).
URL: | http://www.jstor.org/stable/2640713 |
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Google Scholar: | Look up in Google Scholar |
Abstract
Angiosperm families differ greatly from one another in species richness (S). Previous studies have attributed significant components of this variation to the influence of pollination mode (biotic/abiotic) and growth form (herbaceous/woody) on speciation rate, but these results suffer difficulties of interpretation because all the studies ignored the phylogenetic relationships among families. We use a molecular phylogeny of the angiosperm families to reanalyse correlations between S and family-level traits and use reconstructions of trait evolution to interpret the results. We confirm that pollination mode and growth form are correlated with S and show that the majority of changes in pollination mode involved a change from biotic to abiotic pollination with an associated fall in speciation rate. The majority of growth form changes involved the evolution of herbaceousness from woodiness with a correlated rise in speciation rate. We test the hypothesis of Ricklefs and Renner (1994) that "evolutionary flexibility" rather than other trait changes triggered increased speciation rates in some families, but find little support for the hypothesis.
Item Type: | Journal Item |
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Copyright Holders: | 1999 The Society for the Study of Evolution |
ISSN: | 1558-5646 |
Keywords: | angiosperm phylogeny; dispersal; growth form; key innovations; pollination; species diversity; trait evolution |
Academic Unit/School: | Faculty of Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) Faculty of Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) > Environment, Earth and Ecosystem Sciences |
Item ID: | 27575 |
Depositing User: | Michael Dodd |
Date Deposited: | 12 Apr 2011 10:19 |
Last Modified: | 19 Dec 2017 10:01 |
URI: | http://oro.open.ac.uk/id/eprint/27575 |
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