Evolutionary transitions in floral color
The tremendous diversity in flower color among angiosperms implies that there have been numerous evolutionary transitions in this character. The conventional wisdom is that a large proportion of these transitions reflect adaptation to novel pollinator regimes. By contrast, recent research suggests that many of these transitions may instead have been driven by selection imposed by nonpollinator agents of selection acting on pleiotropic effects of flower color genes. I evaluate the evidence for these alternative hypotheses and find that while there is circumstantial evidence consistent with each hypothesis, there are no definitive examples of flower color evolution conforming to either hypothesis. I also document four macroevolutionary trends in flower color evolution: color transitions rates are often asymmetrical; biases favoring loss of pigmentation or favoring gain of pigmentation are both observed, but bias favoring transition from blue to red flowers seems more common than the reverse bias; transitions from blue to red often involve inactivation of branches of the anthocyanin pathway; and color transitions often involve loss-of-function mutations. Finally, I discuss how these trends may be related to one another. © 2008 by The University of Chicago. All rights reserved.
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- Evolutionary Biology
- 3108 Plant biology
- 3104 Evolutionary biology
- 3103 Ecology
- 0607 Plant Biology
- 0603 Evolutionary Biology
Citation
Published In
DOI
ISSN
Publication Date
Volume
Issue
Start / End Page
Related Subject Headings
- Evolutionary Biology
- 3108 Plant biology
- 3104 Evolutionary biology
- 3103 Ecology
- 0607 Plant Biology
- 0603 Evolutionary Biology