Department of Biological Sciences, University of Calgary, Calgary, AB T2N1N4, Canada.
Proc Biol Sci. 2010 Oct 7;277(1696):2957-65. doi: 10.1098/rspb.2010.0501. Epub 2010 May 19.
The relative number of seeds produced by competing species can influence the community structure; yet, traits that influence seed production, such as pollinator attraction and floral colour, have received little attention in community ecology. Here, we analyse floral colour using reflectance spectra that include near-UV and examined the phylogenetic signal of floral colour. We found that coflowering species within communities tended to be more divergent in floral colour than expected by chance. However, coflowering species were not phylogenetically dispersed, in part due to our finding that floral colour is a labile trait with a weak phylogenetic signal. Furthermore, while we found that locally rare and common species exhibited equivalent floral colour distances from their coflowering neighbours, frequent species (those found in more communities) exhibited higher colour distances from their coflowering neighbours. Our findings support recent studies, which have found that (i) plant lineages exhibit frequent floral colour transitions; and (ii) traits that influence local population dynamics contribute to community structure.
竞争物种所产生的种子相对数量会影响群落结构；然而，在群落生态学中，对影响种子生产的特征（如传粉者吸引力和花色）的关注较少。在这里，我们使用包括近紫外线在内的反射率光谱来分析花色，并研究了花色的系统发育信号。我们发现，群落内的共花物种在花色上比随机预期的更为多样化。然而，共花物种在系统发育上并没有分散，部分原因是我们发现花色是一个不稳定的特征，具有较弱的系统发育信号。此外，尽管我们发现本地稀有种和常见种与其共花邻居的花色距离相当，但频繁种（即在更多群落中发现的种）与其共花邻居的花色距离更高。我们的研究结果支持了最近的研究，这些研究发现：（i）植物谱系表现出频繁的花色转变；以及（ii）影响局部种群动态的特征有助于群落结构。
