Angiosperms are the most diverse and numerous group of plants, and it is generally accepted that this evolutionary success owes in part to the diversity found in fruits, key for protecting the developing seeds and ensuring seed dispersal. Although studies on the molecular basis of morphological innovations are few, they all illustrate the central role played by transcription factors acting as developmental regulators. Here, we show that a small change in the protein sequence of a MADS-box transcription factor correlates with the origin of a highly modified fruit morphology and the change in seed dispersal strategies that occurred in Medicago, a genus belonging to the large legume family. This protein sequence modification alters the functional properties of the protein, affecting the affinities for other protein partners involved in high-order complexes. Our work illustrates that variation in coding regions can generate evolutionary novelties not based on gene duplication/subfunctionalization but by interactions in complex networks, contributing also to the current debate on the relative importance of changes in regulatory or coding regions of master regulators in generating morphological novelties.
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http://dx.doi.org/10.1104/pp.113.217570 | DOI Listing |
Ecol Evol
January 2025
Centro de Investigaciones sobre Desertificación CIDE CSIC-UVEG-GV Valencia Spain.
The spatial distribution pattern of plant species is frequently driven by a combination of biotic and abiotic factors that jointly influence the arrival, establishment, and reproduction of plants. Comparing the spatial distribution of a target plant species in different populations represents a robust approach to identify the underlying mechanisms. We mapped all reproductive individuals of the Iberian pear () in five plots (1.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBiol Lett
January 2025
Department of Ecosystem Management, Climate, and Biodiversity, Institute of Wildlife Biology and Game Management, BOKU - University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences, Vienna, Austria.
Food-hoarding granivores act as both predators and dispersers of plant seeds, resulting in facultative species interactions along a mutualism-antagonism continuum. The position along this continuum is determined by the positive and negative interactions that vary with the ratio between seed availability and animal abundance, particularly for mast-seeding species with interannual variation and spatial synchrony of seed production. Empirical data on the entire fate of seeds up to germination and the influence of rodents on seed survival is rare, resulting in a lack of consensus on their position along the mutualism-antagonism continuum.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFUnder an adaptive hypothesis, the reciprocal influence between mutualistic plants and frugivores is expected to result in suites of matching frugivore and plant traits that structure fruit consumption. Recent work has suggested fruit traits can represent adaptations to broad groups of functionally similar frugivores, but the role of frugivore traits and within-species variation in structuring fruit consumption is less understood. To address these knowledge gaps, we assess the presence of reciprocal trait matching for the mutualistic ecological network comprising of bats that feed on and disperse seeds.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe Asian Needle Ant, (Hymenoptera: Formicidae), has spread throughout a substantial portion of the southeastern United States where it has primarily been restricted to low elevations. We focused on the . invasion in Great Smoky Mountains National Park (GSMNP).
View Article and Find Full Text PDFEcol Lett
January 2025
State Key Laboratory of Plant Diversity and Specialty Crops, Wuhan Botanical Garden, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Wuhan, China.
Biotic interactions play an important role in species diversification and maintenance and, thus, are regarded as the architecture of biodiversity. Since Darwin and Wallace, biologists have debated whether biotic interactions are stronger towards the tropics and on continents, when compared to temperate regions and islands. Here, based on 354 avian frugivory networks accounting for 22,199 interactions between 1247 bird species and 2126 plant species, we quantified trait matching strength, which reflects interaction strength and specificity, across gradients of latitude and insularity globally.
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