Modern Phytomorphology最新文献

{"title":"Chosen aspects of flowering of Ranunculaceae representatives in Poland","authors":"B. Denisow, M. Wrzesień, Jacek Jachuła","doi":"10.5281/ZENODO.159710","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5281/ZENODO.159710","url":null,"abstract":"The family Ranunculaceae consists of numerous widespread species occuring from lowlands to subalpine or alpine zones. In Poland, the species grow in different types of habitats, including xerothermic swards (Adonido-Brachypodietum, Brachypodio-Teucrietum, Thalictro-Salvietum, Seslerio-Scorzoneretum) and decidous forests (Tilio-Carpinetum). Many species are popular ornamentals cultivated fro their esthetic value. Ranunculaceans vary remarkably in the phenology of blooming. Among them, there are early spring blooming species like Eranthis hyemalis, Ficaria verna, Isopyrum thalictroides, Anemone nemorosa, A. ranunculoides, and those that start to bloom in autumn, e.g. Aconitum carmichaelli. The overall flowering duration may differ significantly between years – for example, in Anemone sylvestris the disparities reached more than three weeks. The occurrence and the length of each blooming phase may vary considerably between sites, e.g. in Adonis vernalis 10-15-day dissimilarities in the occurrence of blooming stages were recorded. Additionally, the duration of the full blooming stage varied from 10 to 30 days.The diurnal pattern of blooming among Ranunculaceae members was proved to be highly species-specific. Flowers of Aquilegia vulgaris started opening at approx. 5.00 (GMT+2), which was 2-3 hours earlier than those of Adonis vernalis. Significant differences in the diurnal flowering dynamics can be found even in the same genus: flowers of Aconitum lycoctonum began opening at 5.00 (with the peak between 6.00-9.00), while flowers of Aconitum carmichaelii started opening at 8.00 and peaked between 11.00-13.00.The flowering abundance may differ among populations of the same species. The management type was found to have an impact on the individuals’ density of Adonis vernalis occurring in xerothermic grasslands. The control of shrub encashment has already been designated as the factor determining the flowering abundance of Adonis vernalis in Lublin Upland.Some Ranunculaceae representatives are dichogamous. This feature is commonly thought as the factor preventing self-pollination and inbreeding depression. For example, Helleborus foetidus and Anemone sylvestris are known to be protogynous, while many of the Aconitum representatives are protandrous. There may be evident difference in duration of each floral sexual phases, like in protandrous Aconitum carmichaelii (the length of male phase vs. female phase = 7.6 vs. 1.9 days, on average) or the time spent in stigma and pollen presentation can be similar, like in protogynous Adonis vernalis (7.5 and 8.4 days on average, respectively).Disparities in flowering period, diurnal dynamics of blooming and sexual phases were found to be the adaptations to different insect foraging patterns.","PeriodicalId":18663,"journal":{"name":"Modern Phytomorphology","volume":"9 1","pages":"85-85"},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2016-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"71029604","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Some notes on the genus Aconitum in Chornohora Mts.","authors":"A. Novikoff, J. Mitka, Alexander T. Kuzyarin, O. Orlov, Marina Ragulina","doi":"10.5281/ZENODO.159703","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5281/ZENODO.159703","url":null,"abstract":"The paper is a contribution to ecology and chorology of Aconitum in high-mountain zone of the Ukrainian Carpathians. It was confirmed that genus Aconitum in the Chornogora mountain range is represented by 14 taxa, and 7 more taxa were listed as potential for this region. These taxa belong to 3 subgenera and are divided on 4 main biomorphological groups delimited on the base of their habitat, life form, ecology and altitudinal distribution. The soil and vegetation types for all taxa have been identified and the maps of their distribution have been prepared. The most influent threats and their categories were identified. Threat category for A. × nanum was changed from DD to VU, and for A. firmum subsp. fussianum from NT to VU.","PeriodicalId":18663,"journal":{"name":"Modern Phytomorphology","volume":"9 1","pages":"35-73"},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2016-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"71029643","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Pollinator-mediated selection on nectary depth in Urophysa (Ranunculaceae)","authors":"Li Sun, Yi Ren","doi":"10.5281/ZENODO.159708","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5281/ZENODO.159708","url":null,"abstract":"Pollinator-mediated selection has been considered to be one of major factors that shapes the evolution of flowers by matching flowers to their pollinators on traits associated with attraction of pollinators or mechanical fit. The match between nectary depth, which means the length of the tubular structure formed in many plant species to hide the nectary and store nectar, and the mouthparts length of its major nectar-foraging pollinators has been repeatedly demonstrated as an example, because this trait have shown a positive relationship with pollen removal and deposition in experimental manipulations in many synpetalous plants and orchid family. However, it remains unclear how pollinator-mediated selection affects the evolution of nectary depth in choripetalous and actinomorphic flowers, such as most flowers in Ranunculaceae. Here we investigated floral characteristics and pollinators in Urophysa rockii Ulbr. and U. henryi (Oliv.) Ulbr., as they are quite the same in habitat, anthesis and morphological characteristics except for nectary depth. Both of these species have flat white sepals and yellow petals each has a spatial structure at the base that contains nectar, but the nectary depth of U. rockii is deeper than that of U. henryi, for the former petals are shortly spurred about 3-4 mm in length while the latter are saccate. Meanwhile, the flowers of both species are most frequently visited by Apis cerana, the Chinese honey bee, and one or two species of hover fly, Syrphidae, but only A. cerana was able to forage nectar in U. rockii while all visitors can forage nectar in U. henryi. A. cerana always lands on the center of a flower and projects its proboscis into each petal when its thorax touches anthers and stigmas. The difference between two species is that U. rockii was visited by A. cerana with a higher frequency, longer visiting time per flower and more activities on flowers than U. henryi. Besides, the petal width and its nectary depth of U. rockii closely match the width of the labrum and the effective mouthparts length of A. cerana, respectively. Therefore, we concluded that pollinator-mediated selection played a vital role in the evolution of nectary depth in Urophysa, with deeper nectaries favoured through reproductive fitness, because this trait affects flower-pollinator interaction and therefore pollen deposition. We also detected deeper nectaries favoured because this trait also affects nectar accumulation as well as deeper nectaries can prevent inefficiency visitors from foraging nectar effectively.","PeriodicalId":18663,"journal":{"name":"Modern Phytomorphology","volume":"9 1","pages":"83-83"},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2016-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"71029535","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Floral reward in Ranunculaceae species","authors":"B. Denisow, M. Strzałkowska-Abramek, A. Jeżak","doi":"10.5281/zenodo.159711","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.159711","url":null,"abstract":"Floral reward is important in ecological and evolutionary perspectives and essential in pollination biology. For example, floral traits, nectar and pollen features are essential for understanding the functional ecology, the dynamics of pollen transport, competition for pollinator services, and patterns of specialization and generalization in plant–pollinator interactions. We believe to present a synthetic description in the field of floral reward in Ranunculaceae family important in pollination biology and indicating connections between ecological and evolutionary approaches. The links between insect visitors’ behaviour and floral reward type and characteristics exist.Ranunculaceae is a family of aboot 1700 species (aboot 60 genera), distributed worldwide, however the most abundant representatives are in temperate and cool regions of the northern and southern hemispheres. The flowers are usually radially symmetric (zygomorphic) and bisexual, but in Aconitum, Aquilegia are bilaterally symmetric (zygomorphic). Most Ranunculaceae flowers offer no nectar, only pollen (e.g., Ranunculus, Adonis vernalis, Thalictrum), but numerous species create trophic niches for different wild pollinators (e.g., Osmia, Megachile, Bombus, Andrena) (Denisow et al. 2008).Pollen is a source of protein, vitamins, mineral salts, organic acids and hormones, but the nutritional value varies greatly between different plant species. The pollen production can differ significantly between Ranunculacea species. The mass of pollen produced in anthers differ due to variations in the number of developed anthers. For example, inter-species differences are considerable, 49 anthers are noted in Aquilegia vulgaris, 70 anthers in Ranunculus lanuginosus, 120 in Adonis vernalis. A significant intra-species differences in the number of anthers are also noted (e.g. 41 to 61 in Aquilegia vulgaris, 23-45 in Ranunculus cassubicus). Pollen production can be up to 62 kg per ha for Ranunculus acer on meadows.Nectaries are secretory structures that synthesize and release nectar, a multi-component carbohydrate-rich aqueous solution. The relative location of nectaries within a flower is under pressure to maximize relations with pollinators, and hence to ensure the deposition of pollen on the stigma by pollinators. Nectaries are common in Ranunculaceae. Location, morphology and structure of the floral nectaries differ among Ranunculaceae representatives. Nectaries are tubular in Helleborus spp. or situated in nectary spurs (Aconitum, Aquilegia). Nectaries consist of an external epidermis, a photosynthesizing parenchyma, large branches of vascular tissue, a nectar-producing parenchyma, and an internal epidermis (Vesprini et al. 2008).Nectar production is generally associated with mutualistic relations with animals that rely on sugar secretions in their nutrition. Inter-species differences in the amount of nectar produced and nectar chemistry are noted among Ranunculaceae species. Significant variations ","PeriodicalId":18663,"journal":{"name":"Modern Phytomorphology","volume":"9 1","pages":"87-88"},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2016-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"71029625","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Perianth evolution in Ranunculaceae: are petals ancestral in the family?","authors":"S. Nadot, H. Sauquet, C. Damerval, Florian Jabbour, Boris Domenech","doi":"10.5281/ZENODO.159705","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5281/ZENODO.159705","url":null,"abstract":"Progress has been made recently towards the elucidation of phylogenetic relationships among subfamilies and tribes of the Ranunculaceae – the most recent hypothesis was published in 2016 by our team. Although relationships among the 10 tribes of the subfamily Ranunculoideae remain incompletely supported, this hypothesis provides an interesting framework to address the key issue of the ancestral vs. derived nature of a differentiated perianth within the family, and at the level of Ranunculales as a whole. Here, we present ancestral state reconstructions for several perianth characters, such as differentiation into sepals and petals, shape of petals, presence/absence of nectaries, and petaloid or sepaloid aspect of sepals. Characters were scored using the PROTEUS database and optimized on the most recent phylogeny of Ranunculaceae using parsimony and maximum likelihood methods. The results are discussed with regard to recent evo-devo studies focused on identifying genes involved in floral organs identity (the so-called ABC model) in Ranunculales.","PeriodicalId":18663,"journal":{"name":"Modern Phytomorphology","volume":"33 1","pages":"77-77"},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2016-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"71029946","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Attempt of a morphological differentiation of Helleborus species in the Northwestern Balkans","authors":"Walter Rottensteiner","doi":"10.5281/ZENODO.159701","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5281/ZENODO.159701","url":null,"abstract":"The genus Helleborus is represented in the Northwestern Balkans by 8 species. Some of them (H. atrorubens, H. foetidus (newcomer, introduced as well as escaped from culture), H. niger, and H. orientalis (newcomer, escaped from culture)) are rather easy for determination and discrimination. While other 4 species (H. dumetorum, H. multifidus, H. odorus, and H. viridis) are really difficult for determination because of their narrow morphological similarity, which also is realized a wide variety in leaf shape. The distribution areas of last 4 species overlap in the Northwestern Balkans, so that there are no really clear borders of their distribution. Dominating species in this region is H. multifidus, and especially common there is its subsp. istriacus. Other 3 species are rare and are therefore often overlooked and the herbarium specimens are frequently misidentified as H. multifidus. Moreover, all these 4 species produce number of hybrids, and as a result all kind of transistions between these taxa could be found. In particular, 11 hybrides could be confirmed for this region. The hybrid between H. dumetorum and H. multifidus is described here as Helleborus ×mucheri.","PeriodicalId":18663,"journal":{"name":"Modern Phytomorphology","volume":"9 1","pages":"17-33"},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2016-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"71029857","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Morphological features of Delphinium sergii Wissjul. ex situ in M.M. Gryshko National Botanical Garden","authors":"A. Gnatiuk","doi":"10.5281/zenodo.159713","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.159713","url":null,"abstract":"Delphinium sergii Wissjul. is an endemic of eastern coast of Black Sea. It is listed in Red book of Ukraine with conservation status “vulnerable” (Didukh 2009). It grows mainly in eastern part of Ukraine in nature and is not typical for the Kyiv region. It is a perennial plant with bright blue flowers. The individuals of this specie are cultivated in the M.M. Gryshko National Botanical Garden during last 15 years. The results of the study of ontogenetic development and morphological diversity show that D. sergii is characterized by heterophylly and common morphological variability of leaf blade. The correlation of degree between leaf blade dissection and their formation and age was established. Dissected leaves are found to be “older” while with entire laminas – “younger”. Formation of different leaves in individuals of the same age states their dependence from lighting, soil moisture, crop density, genetic heterogeneity and plasticity of individuals in different conditions of growth.We observed a difference in terms of passing through ontogenetic stages among the individuals too. Our investigation established that the individuals of D. sergii ex situ can accelerate the ontogenetic development and reach the generative stage for just 2 years. The juvenile period in some individuals may last for just one growing season. It is noted that under the unfavorable factors (thickened crops, drought, and shading) development of D. sergii individuals became slower.This species can be reproduced both by seed and vegetative. Propagation by seeds is the main way for distribution of these plants. Vegetative reproduction could be realized by particulation of individuals at g and ss stages. In Кyiv region D. sergii is blooming in June-July.Delphinium is well known as such representing the “bee-flowers syndrome”. According to our observations the main pollinators of D. sergii in conditions of our botanical garden were Bombus pascuorum (Scopoli, 1763), B. hortorum (Linnaeus, 1761), B. lucorum (Linnaeus, 1761), and B. lapidarius (Linnaeus, 1758). The flowers of D. sergii were attractive also for bees (Lasioglossum sp., Apis mellifera (Linnaeus, 1758)) and butterflies of Ochlodes sylvanus (Esper, 1778).","PeriodicalId":18663,"journal":{"name":"Modern Phytomorphology","volume":"49 1","pages":"91-91"},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2016-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"71029975","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Morphological development of petals in Ranunculaceae","authors":"Yi Ren, Xiao-hong Zhao","doi":"10.5281/ZENODO.159707","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5281/ZENODO.159707","url":null,"abstract":"The petals, or the honey-leaves, are of great divergence in morphology in Ranunculaceae, i. e., tubular, bilabial, cup-shaped, flat, concaved or scaled at the base, with or without spur or succate. The previous observations showed that although the petals differ in mature morphology, they showed great similarity in the early development stage. The petal primordia are all hemispherical, rounded and much smaller than the sepal primordia, a relatively long plastochron exists between the last sepal and the first petal and differentiate into a blade and a short stalk. Thus, we assumed that the different morphology of the mature petals might be due to the morphological repatterning of petals in the development. To prove the hypothesis, the morphological development of the petals from 22 species from 20 genera, recovering all ten petalous clades and the major morphological types, in Ranunculaceae was observed by scanning electron microscope (SEM).The young petal undergoes the following developmental stages to the mature petal after it differentiates into blade and stalk. In the first stage, a depression appears at the base of the blade and the nectary tissue will appear in the depression in the later development. In the second stage, two bulges appear at the base of the depression that makes the petal bilabial and the bulges will be the upper lip of the petal and thus the blade will be the lower lip. In the third stage, two bulges become larger and fuse with one another at first and then fuse with the margins of the blade in each side, or each of the bulges fuses with the margin of the blade at first and then fuses with one another, or the bulges stop further growth and the depression deepened to form the succate or the spur. In the fourth stage, the lips, the two fused sides and the stalk growth in different speed.The divergence of development of different petals happens mainly in the third and the fourth stages and less divergence in the second and then the first stages. For example, a tubular petal of Helleborus thibetanus undergoes the following developmental stages: a depression appear at the base of the blade, then two bulges appear at the base of the depression, and then the bulges fuse with one another to form the upper lip, the upper lip fuses with two margins of the blade that makes the petal oblique cup-shaped, the growth speed of the upper lip is faster than the two fused sides and that of the later is faster than the lower lip that makes the petal to be tubular; a spurred petal of Aquilegia yabeana undergoes the following developmental stages: a depression appears at the base of the blade, then two bulges appears at the base of the depression, the depression deepens to form the spur and the bulges stop further growth.According to the molecular systematic results, the genera in two basal most clades, Glaudidium and Hydrastis, are apetalous. Coptis and Xanthorhiza are in the next basal most clade, the petal in this clade only has, or sometime","PeriodicalId":18663,"journal":{"name":"Modern Phytomorphology","volume":"9 1","pages":"81-82"},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2016-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"71029822","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Two major groups of chloroplast DNA haplotypes in diploid and tetraploid Aconitum subgen. Aconitum (Ranunculaceae) in the Carpathians","authors":"J. Mitka, P. Boroń, A. Novikoff, A. Wróblewska, Bogusław Binkiewicz","doi":"10.5281/ZENODO.159700","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5281/ZENODO.159700","url":null,"abstract":"Aconitum in Europe is represented by ca. 10% of the total number of species and the Carpathian Mts. are the center of the genus variability in the subcontinent. We studied the chloroplast DNA intergenic spacer trnL(UAG)-rpl32-ndhF (cpDNA) variability of the Aconitum subgen. Aconitum in the Carpathians: diploids (2n=16, sect. Cammarum), tetraploids (2n=32, sect. Aconitum) and triploids (2n=24, nothosect. Acomarum). Altogether 25 Aconitum accessions representing the whole taxonomic variability of the subgenus were sequenced and subjected to phylogenetic analyses. Both parsimony, Bayesian and character network analyses showed the two distinct types of the cpDNA chloroplast, one typical of the diploid and the second of the tetraploid groups. Some specimens had identical cpDNA sequences (haplotypes) and scattered across the whole mountain arch. In the sect. Aconitum 9 specimens shared one haplotype, while in the sect. Camarum one haplotype represents 4 accessions and the second – 5 accessions. The diploids and tetraploids were diverged by 6 mutations, while the intrasectional variability amounted maximally to 3 polymorphisms. Taking into consideration different types of cpDNA haplotypes and ecological profiles of the sections (tetraploids – high‑mountain species, diploids – species from forest montane belt) we speculate on the different and independent history of the sections in the Carpathians.","PeriodicalId":18663,"journal":{"name":"Modern Phytomorphology","volume":"50 1","pages":"5-15"},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2016-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"71029927","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Modern theoretical and technical approaches in plant morphology","authors":"J. Schönenberger, Marion Chartier, Y. Staedler","doi":"10.5281/ZENODO.159706","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5281/ZENODO.159706","url":null,"abstract":"Morphology is deeply rooted in organismal biology, which in recent years has gone through a steady decline in interest both at research institutions and funding agencies. In parallel with this development, morphology as a discipline has been marginalized and nowadays many think of it as just a classical and largely obsolete field of research.  However, this is far from the truth. Thanks to modern theoretical concepts and novel technical applications, plant morphology has much to contribute to modern botanical and evolutionary research.In our presentation, we will first outline the application of High Resolution X-Ray Computed Tomography (HRXCT) to the study of plant structure. The ideal way to describe the morphological phenotype of a given organism is to build a three dimensional (3D) model, which may then be interpreted with respect to other types of data, e.g., metabolite content or functional groups of pollinators. We have developed simple but efficient lab protocols using contrasting agents such as phosphotungstate and bismuth tartrate that allow for the streamlined acquisition of high resolution phenotypic data and 3D-representations even of soft plant tissues such as floral organs, ovules, and meristematic tissues. To illustrate this, we will outline selected ongoing studies in comparative plant science that make use of high resolution tomography.In the second part of our talk, we will present a project on the floral morphospace. A striking feature of morphological variation is that due to developmental, functional, and phylogenetic constraints, not all theoretically possible architectures have been explored during evolution. A modern approach to studying the evolution of realized forms among possible ones is to construct morphospaces, i.e. theoretical, mathematical spaces describing and relating organismal phenotypes. Although widely applied in zoology, morphospace analyses and related approaches have so far been largely disregarded in botany, with notable exceptions in the field of pollination biology. Here, we use a morphospace approach to describe and quantify the morphological diversity (disparity) of flowers in the asterid order Ericales. To do so, we have built a dataset containing 37 floral characters for more than 380 species (275 genera) representative of the entire order. We have used non-parametric representations and statistics methods based on distance matrices to build and analyze a morphospace, in which we compare the relative positions of the different ericalean families. We quantify and interpret the disparity among these groups in the light of their taxonomic diversity, their evolutionary history, and their ecology. In addition, we analyze patterns of disparity between sterile, male, and female floral organs.","PeriodicalId":18663,"journal":{"name":"Modern Phytomorphology","volume":"9 1","pages":"79-79"},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2016-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"71029803","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}