Pollinator shifts drive increasingly long nectar spurs in columbine flowers

Justen B. Whittall () and Scott A. Hodges ()
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Justen B. Whittall: Evolution and Marine Biology, University of California, Santa Barbara, California 93106, USA
Scott A. Hodges: Evolution and Marine Biology, University of California, Santa Barbara, California 93106, USA

Nature, 2007, vol. 447, issue 7145, 706-709

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.

Date: 2007
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DOI: 10.1038/nature05857

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