Plant size: a key determinant of diversification?

Summary Explaining the variation in diversification rate across groups of plants has long been an important goal of botanists. In plants, complex scenarios involving a combination of extrinsic opportunities and intrinsic traits have been used to explain rapid diversification in certain groups. Howev...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:The New phytologist 2017-10, Vol.216 (1), p.24-31
Main Authors: Boucher, Florian C., Verboom, G. Anthony, Musker, Seth, Ellis, Allan G.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Angiosperms
Biodiversity
Biological evolution
Botanists
Dispersal
Diversification
Empirical analysis
environmental heterogeneity
Extinction
Extinction, Biological
Genetic processes
Genetic Speciation
Genetics, Population
Height
Heterogeneity
local adaptation
plant height
Plants - anatomy & histology
Plants - genetics
Population genetics
Population number
Seed dispersal
Speciation
Species extinction
Viewpoints
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Summary:Summary Explaining the variation in diversification rate across groups of plants has long been an important goal of botanists. In plants, complex scenarios involving a combination of extrinsic opportunities and intrinsic traits have been used to explain rapid diversification in certain groups. However, we feel that a very simple trait has been neglected from theories of plant diversification, namely plant height. Here, we argue that decreasing plant size should generally lead to an increase in speciation rate and a decrease in extinction rate. Theory suggests that all population genetic processes involved in speciation are influenced by plant size and its correlates, including seed dispersal distance, population size, generation time and the spatial scale at which plants perceive environmental heterogeneity. In addition, several of these variables, notably population size, also influence rates of extinction. We support our arguments with an empirical analysis showing that plant height is indeed negatively correlated with net diversification rate across families of angiosperms. Finally, we outline how the finer aspects of our hypothesis could be tested, at both micro‐ and macroevolutionary scales. In addition to strengthening our understanding of the effect of plant size on evolutionary processes, such a research agenda should contribute novel insights to speciation theory in general.
ISSN:0028-646X
1469-8137
DOI:10.1111/nph.14697