Pollination Syndromes: A Global Pattern of Convergent Evolution Driven by the Most Effective Pollinator

ASHWORTH LORENA; AGUILAR RAMIRO; MARTÉN-RODRIGUEZ SILVANA; LOPEZ-ARAIZA MARTHA; AVILA SAKAR GERMAN; QUESADA MAURICIO

Evolutionary Biology: Biodiversification from Genotype to Phenotype

Springer International Publishing

Año: 2015; p. 203 - 224

Convergent evolution of floral traits driven by pollinators has resulted in floral syndromes shared among different plant lineages. However, the flowers of many plant species are often visited by different pollinator groups, which apparently contradict the idea of syndromes. Here, we demonstrate the most efficient pollinators consistently correspond to the ones predicted by the syndrome, but the relative efficiency of the expected pollinators is higher in species with one pollinator functional group than in species with several pollinator groups. The identity and absolute efficiency of the secondary pollinator functional group varies depending on the primary pollinator. The most frequent secondary pollinator group of a given syndrome is also the least efficient one. Floral symmetry did not influence predictability of pollination syndromes. Except for the bee syndrome, pollination syndromes were more effective on plants that depend strongly on animal pollination than on less dependent plants. Last, effective pollinators for each floral syndrome were better predicted for plants from tropical regions, particularly for the bat, bee, and bird syndromes. Our results have implications on the effects of global change on floral evolution and suggest that current suites of floral traits in most plant species have the potential to adapt to new conditions under changing selective pollination environments.