Key Laboratory for Plant Diversity and Biogeography of East Asia, Kunming Institute of Botany, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Kunming, 650201, China.
Yunnan International Joint Laboratory for Biodiversity of Central Asia, Kunming Institute of Botany, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Kunming, 650201, China.
New Phytol. 2022 Sep;235(5):2054-2065. doi: 10.1111/nph.18271. Epub 2022 Jun 16.
The length of time a flower remains open and functional - floral longevity - governs important reproductive processes influencing pollination and mating and varies considerably among angiosperm species. However, little is known about large-scale biogeographic patterns and the correlates of floral longevity. Using published data on floral longevity from 818 angiosperm species in 134 families and 472 locations world-wide, we present the first global quantification of the latitudinal pattern of floral longevity and the relationships between floral longevity and a range of biotic and abiotic factors. Floral longevity exhibited a significant phylogenetic signal and was longer at higher latitudes in both northern and southern hemispheres, even after accounting for elevation. This latitudinal variation was associated with several biotic and abiotic variables. The mean temperature of the flowering season had the highest predictive power for floral longevity, followed by pollen number per flower. Surprisingly, compatibility status, flower size, pollination mode, and growth form had no significant effects on flower longevity. Our results suggest that physiological processes associated with floral maintenance play a key role in explaining latitudinal variation in floral longevity across global ecosystems, with potential implications for floral longevity under global climate change and species distributions.
一朵花保持开放和功能的时间——花期长短——控制着重要的生殖过程，影响授粉和交配，在被子植物物种中差异很大。然而，关于花期长短的大规模生物地理模式和相关因素知之甚少。利用来自全球 134 科 472 个地点的 818 个被子植物物种的已发表花期长短数据，我们首次对全球花期长短的纬度模式进行了量化，并研究了花期长短与一系列生物和非生物因素之间的关系。花期长短表现出明显的系统发育信号，在南北半球的高纬度地区更长，即使在考虑了海拔高度之后也是如此。这种纬度变化与一些生物和非生物变量有关。开花季节的平均温度对花期长短具有最高的预测能力，其次是每朵花的花粉数量。令人惊讶的是，亲和状态、花的大小、授粉模式和生长形式对花期长短没有显著影响。我们的研究结果表明，与花朵维护相关的生理过程在解释全球生态系统中花期长短的纬度变化方面起着关键作用，这对全球气候变化和物种分布下的花期长短具有潜在影响。
