IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/nat/nature/v447y2007i7145d10.1038_nature05857.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Pollinator shifts drive increasingly long nectar spurs in columbine flowers

Author

Listed:
  • Justen B. Whittall

    (Evolution and Marine Biology, University of California, Santa Barbara, California 93106, USA
    Present address: Section of Evolution and Ecology, University of California, One Shields Avenue, Davis, California 95616, USA.)

  • Scott A. Hodges

    (Evolution and Marine Biology, University of California, Santa Barbara, California 93106, USA)

Abstract

Darwin's race is run In 1862, in explaining the exceptionally long nectar spur of Angraecum sesquipedale, the star-of-Bethlehem orchid, Darwin proposed that a coevolutionary 'race' had driven the increase in length of a plant's spur and its pollinator's tongue. He predicted the existence of an exceptionally long-tongued moth. It — Xanthopan morgani ssp. praedicta — was discovered in 1903, with a tongue length of 22 cm. But the 'race' model remained contentious as there are other ways in which a curiously long tongue could evolve. Now, using a species-level phylogeny of the columbine genus, Aquilegia, Justen Whittall and Scott Hodges show that nectar spurs in Aquilegia have indeed evolved in an ever-increasing fashion, but due to a predictable series of adaptations to unrelated pollinators, concentrated during speciation events.

Suggested Citation

  • Justen B. Whittall & Scott A. Hodges, 2007. "Pollinator shifts drive increasingly long nectar spurs in columbine flowers," Nature, Nature, vol. 447(7145), pages 706-709, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:nat:nature:v:447:y:2007:i:7145:d:10.1038_nature05857
    DOI: 10.1038/nature05857
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.nature.com/articles/nature05857
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1038/nature05857?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Andrew G Gardner & Jonathan N Fitz Gerald & John Menz & Kelly A Shepherd & Dianella G Howarth & Rachel S Jabaily, 2016. "Characterizing Floral Symmetry in the Core Goodeniaceae with Geometric Morphometrics," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 11(5), pages 1-22, May.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:nat:nature:v:447:y:2007:i:7145:d:10.1038_nature05857. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.nature.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.