The incidence and pattern of copollinator diversification in dioecious and monoecious figs

Differences in breeding system are associated with correlated ecological and morphological changes in plants. In Ficus, dioecy and monoecy are strongly associated with different suites of traits (tree height, population density, fruiting frequency, pollinator dispersal ecology). Although approximate...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Evolution 2015-02, Vol.69 (2), p.294-304
Main Authors: Yang, Li-Yuan, Machado, Carlos A., Dang, Xiao-Dong, Peng, Yan-Qiong, Yang, Da-Rong, Zhang, Da-Yong, Liao, Wan-Jin
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Animals
Base Sequence
Bayes Theorem
Biological Evolution
Biological taxonomies
Breeding
Breeding system
cospeciation
Dioecy
Evolution
Ficus
Ficus - physiology
fig-pollinating wasp
Flowers & plants
Genes, rRNA
host specificity
host switching
Hymenoptera
Meta-analysis
Mitochondria - genetics
Molecular Sequence Data
Morphology
Mutualism
Original
Phylogenetics
Phylogeny
Plant reproduction
Pollination
Pollinators
Sequence Alignment
Species
Symbiosis
Sympatric species
Wasps - classification
Wasps - genetics
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Summary:Differences in breeding system are associated with correlated ecological and morphological changes in plants. In Ficus, dioecy and monoecy are strongly associated with different suites of traits (tree height, population density, fruiting frequency, pollinator dispersal ecology). Although approximately 30% of fig species are pollinated by multiple species of fig-pollinating wasps, it has been suggested that copollinators are rare in dioecious figs. Here, we test whether there is a connection between the fig breeding system and copollinator incidence and diversification by conducting a meta-analysis of molecular data from pollinators of 119 fig species that includes new data from 15 Asian fig species. We find that the incidence of copollinators is not significantly different between monoecious and dioecious Ficus. Surprisingly, while all copollinators in dioecious figs are sister taxa, only 32.1% in monoecious figs are sister taxa. We present hypotheses to explain those patterns and discuss their consequences on the evolution of this mutualism.
ISSN:0014-3820
1558-5646
DOI:10.1111/evo.12584