Evolution of flower allometry and pigmentation in Mammillaria haageana (Cactaceae).

ABSTRACT:

Background

A puzzle in evolution is the understanding of how the environment might drive subtle phenotypic variation, and whether this variation is adaptive. Under the neutral evolutionary theory, subtle phenotypes are almost neutral with little adaptive value. To test this idea, we studied the infraspecific variation in flower shape and color in Mammillaria haageana, a species with a wide geographical distribution and phenotypic variation, which populations are often recognized as infraspecific taxa.

Results

We collected samples from wild populations, kept them in the greenhouse for at least one reproductive year, and collected newly formed flowers. Our first objective was to characterize tepal natural variation in M. haageana through geometric morphometric and multivariate

SUBMITTER: Rosas U 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8787947 | biostudies-literature | 2022 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature