Evolutionary convergence of visual and olfactory signals in a guild of night-blooming flowers pollinated by hawkmoths of southern South America

MORÉ M.; CARMONA D; BENITEZ-VIEYRA S; RAGUSO R.

Montpellier

Congreso; Joint Conference on Evolutionary Biology; 2018

ESEB

Flowers announce the presence of rewards through a combination of sensory signals that can evoke in their pollinators innate or learned behaviors, which mediate effective pollination. Thus, plant species that share a functional group of pollinators often converge upon common signals of attraction. Nocturnal plant hawkmoths rely on a combination of visual and olfactory cues to locate sources of floral nectar. Here, we tested the convergence of both, corolla color and the chemical composition of floral fragrance in a hawkmoth-pollinated plant community of Subtropical South America. relationships.We characterized quantitatively flower color by means of spectrophotometryand chemical composition of floral fragrance using gas chromatographycoupled to mass spectrometry (GC/MS). Measurements were performed on 26species of 11 angiosperm families, including 13 hawkmoth-pollinatedspecies with 14 diurnally-pollinated sister species, mostly from the samecommunity used as 'phylogenetic controls'. Flower color and scent wererepresented in ?phylomorphospaces? for controlling phylogenetic