Research Commons
      • Browse 
        • Communities & Collections
        • Titles
        • Authors
        • By Issue Date
        • Subjects
        • Types
        • Series
      • Help 
        • About
        • Collection Policy
        • OA Mandate Guidelines
        • Guidelines FAQ
        • Contact Us
      • My Account 
        • Sign In
        • Register
      View Item 
      •   Research Commons
      • University of Waikato Research
      • Science and Engineering
      • Science and Engineering Papers
      • View Item
      •   Research Commons
      • University of Waikato Research
      • Science and Engineering
      • Science and Engineering Papers
      • View Item
      JavaScript is disabled for your browser. Some features of this site may not work without it.

      A dated phylogeny shows Plio-Pleistocene climates spurred evolution of antibrowsing defences in the New Zealand flora

      Maurin, Kévin J. L.; Smissen, Rob D.; Lusk, Christopher H.
      Thumbnail
      Files
      A dated phylogeny shows Plio-Pleistocene climates spurred evolution of antibrowsing defences in the New Zealand flora.pdf
      Published version, 1007.Kb
      DOI
       10.1111/nph.17766
      Find in your library  
      Permanent link to Research Commons version
      https://hdl.handle.net/10289/15179
      Abstract
      Some plant traits may be legacies of coevolution with extinct megafauna. One example is the convergent evolution of ‘divaricate’ cage architectures in many New Zealand lineages, interpreted as a response to recently extinct flightless avian browsers whose ancestors arrived during the Paleogene period. Although experiments have confirmed that divaricate habit deters extant browsers, its abundance on frosty, droughty sites appears consistent with an earlier interpretation as a response to cold, dry Plio-Pleistocene climates.

      We used 45 protein-coding sequences from plastid genomes to reconstruct the evolutionary history of the divaricate habit in extant New Zealand lineages. Our dated phylogeny of 215 species included 91% of New Zealand eudicot divaricate species.

      We show that 86% of extant divaricate plants diverged from non-divaricate sisters within the last 5 Ma, implicating Plio-Pleistocene climates in the proliferation of cage architectures in New Zealand.

      Our results, combined with other recent findings, are consistent with the synthetic hypothesis that the browser-deterrent effect of cage architectures was strongly selected only when Plio-Pleistocene climatic constraints prevented woody plants from growing quickly out of reach of browsers. This is consistent with the abundance of cage architectures in other regions where plant growth is restricted by aridity or short frost-free periods.
      Date
      2021
      Type
      Journal Article
      Publisher
      Wiley
      Rights
      © 2021 The Authors.

      This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited and is not used for commercial purposes.
      Collections
      • Science and Engineering Papers [3069]
      Show full item record  

      Usage

      Downloads, last 12 months
      40
       
       
       

      Usage Statistics

      For this itemFor all of Research Commons

      The University of Waikato - Te Whare Wānanga o WaikatoFeedback and RequestsCopyright and Legal Statement