Research Evolutionary stasis in pollen morphogenesis due to natural selection Alexis Matamoro-Vidal1,2,4, Charlotte Prieu1,2, Carol A. Furness3,Beatrice Albert2* and Pierre-Henri Gouyon1* 1Institut de Systematique, Evolution, Biodiversite, UMR 7205 – CNRS, MNHN, UPMC, EPHE Museum national d’Histoire naturelle, Sorbonne Universites, 57 rue Cuvier, CP39 F-75005 Paris, France; 2Laboratoire Ecologie Systematique et Evolution, UMR 8079 CNRS-AgroParisTech-Universite Paris-Sud, 11, F-91405 Orsay, France; 3Jodrell Laboratory, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, Richmond, Surrey, TW9 3DS, UK; 4Present address: Institut Jacques Monod, Universite Paris-Diderot, 75013, Paris, France Summary Author for correspondence: The contribution of developmental constraints and selective forces to the determination of Alexis Matamoro-Vidal evolutionary patterns is an important and unsolved question. We test whether the long-term Tel: +33 (0) 1 57 27 80 99 evolutionary stasis observed for pollen morphogenesis (microsporogenesis) in eudicots is due Email:
[email protected] to developmental constraints or to selection on a morphological trait shaped by microsporoge- Received: 27 February 2015 nesis: the equatorial aperture pattern. Most eudicots have three equatorial apertures but Accepted: 15 June 2015 several taxa have independently lost the equatorial pattern and have microsporogenesis decoupled from aperture pattern determination. If selection on the equatorial pattern limits New Phytologist (2015) variation, we expect to see increased variation in microsporogenesis in the nonequatorial doi: 10.1111/nph.13578 clades. Variation of microsporogenesis was studied using phylogenetic comparative analyses in 83 Key words: comparative analyses, species dispersed throughout eudicots including species with and without equatorial aper- constraints, macroevolution, tures. microsporogenesis, morphological evolution, The species that have lost the equatorial pattern have highly variable microsporogenesis at morphospace, pollen aperture pattern.