Department of Biology, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, United States of America.
PLoS One. 2019 Mar 13;14(3):e0213029. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0213029. eCollection 2019.
The obligate mutualism and exquisite specificity of many plant-pollinator interactions lead to the expectation that flower phenotypes (e.g., corolla tube length) and corresponding pollinator traits (e.g., hawkmoth proboscis length) are congruent as a result of coevolution by natural selection. However, the effect of variation in flower morphology on the fitness of plants and their pollinators has not been quantified systematically. In this study, we employed the theoretical morphospace paradigm using a combination of 3D printing, electronic sensing, and machine vision technologies to determine the influence of two flower morphological features (corolla curvature and nectary diameter) on the fitness of both parties: the artificial flower and its hawkmoth pollinator. Contrary to the expectation that the same flower morphology maximizes the fitness of both plant and pollinator, we found that the two parties have divergent optima for corolla curvature, with non-overlapping fitness peaks in flower morphospace. The divergent fitness optima between plants and pollinators could lead to evolutionary diversification in both groups.
许多植物-传粉者相互作用的专性互利和高度特异性使得人们期望花表型（例如，花冠管长度）和相应的传粉者特征（例如，天蛾喙长度）由于自然选择的共同进化而一致。然而，花形态的变异对植物及其传粉者的适合度的影响尚未得到系统的量化。在这项研究中，我们使用了理论形态空间范例，结合 3D 打印、电子感应和机器视觉技术，来确定两个花形态特征（花冠曲率和蜜腺直径）对双方（人工花及其天蛾传粉者）适合度的影响。与花形态最大化植物和传粉者适合度的预期相反，我们发现双方的花冠曲率具有不同的最优值，在花形态空间中没有重叠的适合度峰值。植物和传粉者之间不同的适合度最优值可能导致两个群体的进化多样化。
