Siyu Chen, Jiayi Lu, Yuran Dong, Yao Li, Lingfeng Mao
{"title":"中国动物传粉植物花瓣大小对气候和海拔梯度的响应","authors":"Siyu Chen, Jiayi Lu, Yuran Dong, Yao Li, Lingfeng Mao","doi":"10.1002/ece3.71396","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<p>The evolutionary adaptations of plant reproductive structures, including angiosperm petal size, are driven by a combination of natural selection influenced by ecological conditions. While previous studies have emphasized pollinator-driven selection on petal traits, significant gaps remain in understanding how abiotic factors, biotic interactions, and life-history trade-offs jointly shape petal size across broad environmental gradients. This study integrates macrogeographic analyses of 10,228 animal-pollinated angiosperm species across China's diverse climatic regions, combining trait data from national flora databases, species distribution records, and high-resolution climate variables. Using hierarchical regression, variance partitioning, and threshold detection models, we disentangle the effects of altitude, latitude, temperature, and precipitation on absolute petal size and its ratio to plant height (MR), while contrasting woody and herbaceous life histories. Key findings reveal: (1) nonlinear thresholds in environmental drivers, with herbaceous petal size declining sharply above 3200 m altitude and 1100 mm annual precipitation; (2) altitude as the dominant predictor of MR, explaining 30% of variance, particularly in alpine zones where floral conspicuousness increases despite plant dwarfing; (3) divergent strategies between woody and herbaceous species, where woody plants prioritize absolute petal size in warm climates, while herbaceous species amplify MR under high-altitude stress; and (4) climate-geography interactions explaining 62%–71% of trait variation, highlighting context-dependent trade-offs between pollinator attraction and stress tolerance. This work provides a comprehensive framework linking petal size traits to multivariate environmental gradients at continental scales, offering critical insights into plant adaptive strategies under climate change and emphasizing altitude-mediated selection as a key driver of floral diversity.</p>","PeriodicalId":11467,"journal":{"name":"Ecology and Evolution","volume":"15 5","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.3000,"publicationDate":"2025-05-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/ece3.71396","citationCount":"0","resultStr":"{\"title\":\"Size Variation in Flower Petals of Chinese Animal-Pollinated Plants in Response to Climatic and Altitudinal Gradients\",\"authors\":\"Siyu Chen, Jiayi Lu, Yuran Dong, Yao Li, Lingfeng Mao\",\"doi\":\"10.1002/ece3.71396\",\"DOIUrl\":null,\"url\":null,\"abstract\":\"<p>The evolutionary adaptations of plant reproductive structures, including angiosperm petal size, are driven by a combination of natural selection influenced by ecological conditions. While previous studies have emphasized pollinator-driven selection on petal traits, significant gaps remain in understanding how abiotic factors, biotic interactions, and life-history trade-offs jointly shape petal size across broad environmental gradients. This study integrates macrogeographic analyses of 10,228 animal-pollinated angiosperm species across China's diverse climatic regions, combining trait data from national flora databases, species distribution records, and high-resolution climate variables. Using hierarchical regression, variance partitioning, and threshold detection models, we disentangle the effects of altitude, latitude, temperature, and precipitation on absolute petal size and its ratio to plant height (MR), while contrasting woody and herbaceous life histories. Key findings reveal: (1) nonlinear thresholds in environmental drivers, with herbaceous petal size declining sharply above 3200 m altitude and 1100 mm annual precipitation; (2) altitude as the dominant predictor of MR, explaining 30% of variance, particularly in alpine zones where floral conspicuousness increases despite plant dwarfing; (3) divergent strategies between woody and herbaceous species, where woody plants prioritize absolute petal size in warm climates, while herbaceous species amplify MR under high-altitude stress; and (4) climate-geography interactions explaining 62%–71% of trait variation, highlighting context-dependent trade-offs between pollinator attraction and stress tolerance. This work provides a comprehensive framework linking petal size traits to multivariate environmental gradients at continental scales, offering critical insights into plant adaptive strategies under climate change and emphasizing altitude-mediated selection as a key driver of floral diversity.</p>\",\"PeriodicalId\":11467,\"journal\":{\"name\":\"Ecology and Evolution\",\"volume\":\"15 5\",\"pages\":\"\"},\"PeriodicalIF\":2.3000,\"publicationDate\":\"2025-05-12\",\"publicationTypes\":\"Journal Article\",\"fieldsOfStudy\":null,\"isOpenAccess\":false,\"openAccessPdf\":\"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/ece3.71396\",\"citationCount\":\"0\",\"resultStr\":null,\"platform\":\"Semanticscholar\",\"paperid\":null,\"PeriodicalName\":\"Ecology and Evolution\",\"FirstCategoryId\":\"99\",\"ListUrlMain\":\"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ece3.71396\",\"RegionNum\":2,\"RegionCategory\":\"生物学\",\"ArticlePicture\":[],\"TitleCN\":null,\"AbstractTextCN\":null,\"PMCID\":null,\"EPubDate\":\"\",\"PubModel\":\"\",\"JCR\":\"Q2\",\"JCRName\":\"ECOLOGY\",\"Score\":null,\"Total\":0}","platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Ecology and Evolution","FirstCategoryId":"99","ListUrlMain":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ece3.71396","RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q2","JCRName":"ECOLOGY","Score":null,"Total":0}
Size Variation in Flower Petals of Chinese Animal-Pollinated Plants in Response to Climatic and Altitudinal Gradients
The evolutionary adaptations of plant reproductive structures, including angiosperm petal size, are driven by a combination of natural selection influenced by ecological conditions. While previous studies have emphasized pollinator-driven selection on petal traits, significant gaps remain in understanding how abiotic factors, biotic interactions, and life-history trade-offs jointly shape petal size across broad environmental gradients. This study integrates macrogeographic analyses of 10,228 animal-pollinated angiosperm species across China's diverse climatic regions, combining trait data from national flora databases, species distribution records, and high-resolution climate variables. Using hierarchical regression, variance partitioning, and threshold detection models, we disentangle the effects of altitude, latitude, temperature, and precipitation on absolute petal size and its ratio to plant height (MR), while contrasting woody and herbaceous life histories. Key findings reveal: (1) nonlinear thresholds in environmental drivers, with herbaceous petal size declining sharply above 3200 m altitude and 1100 mm annual precipitation; (2) altitude as the dominant predictor of MR, explaining 30% of variance, particularly in alpine zones where floral conspicuousness increases despite plant dwarfing; (3) divergent strategies between woody and herbaceous species, where woody plants prioritize absolute petal size in warm climates, while herbaceous species amplify MR under high-altitude stress; and (4) climate-geography interactions explaining 62%–71% of trait variation, highlighting context-dependent trade-offs between pollinator attraction and stress tolerance. This work provides a comprehensive framework linking petal size traits to multivariate environmental gradients at continental scales, offering critical insights into plant adaptive strategies under climate change and emphasizing altitude-mediated selection as a key driver of floral diversity.
期刊介绍:
Ecology and Evolution is the peer reviewed journal for rapid dissemination of research in all areas of ecology, evolution and conservation science. The journal gives priority to quality research reports, theoretical or empirical, that develop our understanding of organisms and their diversity, interactions between them, and the natural environment.
Ecology and Evolution gives prompt and equal consideration to papers reporting theoretical, experimental, applied and descriptive work in terrestrial and aquatic environments. The journal will consider submissions across taxa in areas including but not limited to micro and macro ecological and evolutionary processes, characteristics of and interactions between individuals, populations, communities and the environment, physiological responses to environmental change, population genetics and phylogenetics, relatedness and kin selection, life histories, systematics and taxonomy, conservation genetics, extinction, speciation, adaption, behaviour, biodiversity, species abundance, macroecology, population and ecosystem dynamics, and conservation policy.