Pre-adaptations and the evolution of pollination by sexual deception: Cope's rule of specialization revisited.

ABSTRACT: Pollination by sexual deception is arguably one of the most unusual liaisons linking plants and insects, and perhaps the most illustrative example of extreme floral specialization in angiosperms. While considerable progress has been made in understanding the floral traits involved in sexual deception, less is known about how this remarkable mimicry system might have arisen, the role of pre-adaptations in promoting its evolution and its extent as a pollination mechanism outside the few groups of plants (primarily orchids) where it has been described to date. In the Euro-Mediterranean region, pollination by sexual deception is traditionally considered to be the hallmark of the orchid genus Ophrys. Here, we introduce two new cases outside of Ophrys, in plant groups dominated by generalized, s

SUBMITTER: Vereecken NJ 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3497092 | biostudies-literature | 2012 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature