Year: 2025
Type: article
Abstract: PREMISE: Color in flowers and fruits carries multiple functions, from attracting animal partners (pollinators, dispersers) to mitigating environmental stress (cold, drought, UV-B). With research historically focusing on biotic interactions as selective agents, however, it remains unclear whether abiotic stressors impact flower and fruit colors across large spatial scales and shape their global distribution. Moreover, although flowers and fruits are developmentally linked and exposed to the same macroclimatic conditions, whether they have similar (correlated) responses to environmental stress remains unknown. METHODS: Leveraging a data set of 2815 animal-pollinated and animal-dispersed species from 51 plant clades, we tested whether the diversity and distribution of flower and fruit colors (scored into eight categories) is shaped by temperature, aridity, and UV-B irradiance. RESULTS: Global diversity of flower and fruit colors was uncoupled, with flower color diversity generally lower than fruit color diversity and peaking in areas of high abiotic stress. Fruit color diversity peaked in tropical areas where the diversity of animal mutualists is highest. These distinct patterns were shaped by different responses of individual flower and fruit colors to abiotic stressors (for flowers, pink and red to cold temperatures, yellow and purple to UV-B irradiance; for fruits, red to cold and wet conditions, black to warm, and yellow, green, and orange to UV-B). CONCLUSIONS: Our results challenge the paradigm that flower and fruit colors are primarily shaped by animal partners but instead indicate that abiotic factors may set the macroecological stage for color evolution, with different selective factors acting on flowers and fruits.
Source: American Journal of Botany
DOI: 10.1002/ajb2.70044
Authors: Agnes S. Dellinger, Leah Meier, Stacey Smith, Miranda Sinnott‐Armstrong
Institutions: University of Vienna, University of Colorado Boulder
Language: English
Topic: Plant and animal studies
Domain: Life Sciences
SDG: Zero hunger
Open Access status: hybrid
Estimated APC paid: $2,660
Awards: NSF Postdoctoral Fellowship in Biology FY 2019: Ecology and evolution of a rare phenomenon: structural color in fruits, Modelling abiotic and biotic drivers of a plant radiation, CAREER: Testing The Predictability of Flower Color Evolution at a Phylogenetic Scale in the Petunieae Clade (Solanaceae)
OpenAlex ID: W4410377905