Skip to main content
bioRxiv
  • Home
  • About
  • Submit
  • ALERTS / RSS
Advanced Search
New Results

Rational design of a novel pollinator interaction

View ORCID ProfileKelsey J.R.P. Byers, H.D. Bradshaw Jr.
doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/123604
Kelsey J.R.P. Byers
Department of Biology, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, 98195, USA
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
  • ORCID record for Kelsey J.R.P. Byers
  • For correspondence: kbyers@alum.mit.edu
H.D. Bradshaw Jr.
Department of Biology, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, 98195, USA
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
  • Abstract
  • Full Text
  • Info/History
  • Metrics
  • Preview PDF
Loading

Abstract

Diversification of the ca. 250,000 extant flowering plant species has been driven in large part by coevolution with animal pollinators. A recurring pattern of pollinator shifts from hummingbird to hawkmoth pollination has characterized plant speciation in many western North American plant taxa, but in the genus Mimulus (monkeyflowers) section Erythranthe the evolution of hawkmoth pollination from hummingbird-pollinated ancestors has not occurred. We manipulated two flower color loci and tested the attractiveness of the resulting four color phenotypes (red, yellow, pink, white) to naïve hawkmoths. Hawkmoths strongly prefer derived colors (yellow, pink, white) over the ancestral red, and prefer the two-locus change (white) to either of the single-locus changes (yellow, pink). The simple flower color genetics underlying this innate pollinator preference suggests a potential path for speciation into an unfilled hawkmoth-pollinated niche, and the deliberate design of a hawkmoth-pollinated flower demonstrates a new, predictive method for studying pollination syndrome evolution.

Copyright 
The copyright holder for this preprint is the author/funder, who has granted bioRxiv a license to display the preprint in perpetuity. It is made available under a CC-BY 4.0 International license.
Back to top
PreviousNext
Posted April 04, 2017.
Download PDF
Email

Thank you for your interest in spreading the word about bioRxiv.

NOTE: Your email address is requested solely to identify you as the sender of this article.

Enter multiple addresses on separate lines or separate them with commas.
Rational design of a novel pollinator interaction
(Your Name) has forwarded a page to you from bioRxiv
(Your Name) thought you would like to see this page from the bioRxiv website.
CAPTCHA
This question is for testing whether or not you are a human visitor and to prevent automated spam submissions.
Share
Rational design of a novel pollinator interaction
Kelsey J.R.P. Byers, H.D. Bradshaw Jr.
bioRxiv 123604; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/123604
Digg logo Reddit logo Twitter logo Facebook logo Google logo LinkedIn logo Mendeley logo
Citation Tools
Rational design of a novel pollinator interaction
Kelsey J.R.P. Byers, H.D. Bradshaw Jr.
bioRxiv 123604; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/123604

Citation Manager Formats

  • BibTeX
  • Bookends
  • EasyBib
  • EndNote (tagged)
  • EndNote 8 (xml)
  • Medlars
  • Mendeley
  • Papers
  • RefWorks Tagged
  • Ref Manager
  • RIS
  • Zotero
  • Tweet Widget
  • Facebook Like
  • Google Plus One

Subject Area

  • Evolutionary Biology
Subject Areas
All Articles
  • Animal Behavior and Cognition (3580)
  • Biochemistry (7534)
  • Bioengineering (5488)
  • Bioinformatics (20709)
  • Biophysics (10267)
  • Cancer Biology (7942)
  • Cell Biology (11597)
  • Clinical Trials (138)
  • Developmental Biology (6576)
  • Ecology (10151)
  • Epidemiology (2065)
  • Evolutionary Biology (13565)
  • Genetics (9504)
  • Genomics (12801)
  • Immunology (7891)
  • Microbiology (19472)
  • Molecular Biology (7624)
  • Neuroscience (41939)
  • Paleontology (307)
  • Pathology (1253)
  • Pharmacology and Toxicology (2182)
  • Physiology (3254)
  • Plant Biology (7017)
  • Scientific Communication and Education (1291)
  • Synthetic Biology (1944)
  • Systems Biology (5412)
  • Zoology (1109)