The enormous species richness of flowering plants is at least partly due to floral diversification driven by interactions between plants and their animal pollinators [1, 2]. Specific pollinator attraction relies on visual and olfactory floral cues [3-5]; floral scent can not only attract pollinators but also attract or repel herbivorous insects [6-8]. However, despite its central role for plant...

The great majority of plant species in the tropics require animals to achieve pollination, but the exact role of floral signals in attraction of animal pollinators is often debated. Many plants provide a floral reward to attract a guild of pollinators, and it has been proposed that floral signals of non-rewarding species may converge on those of rewarding species to exploit the relationship of ...

Floral nectar of animal-pollinated plants is commonly infested with microorganisms, yet little is known about the microorganisms inhabiting the floral nectar of orchids. In this study, we investigated microbial communities occurring in the floral nectar of seven Epipactis (Orchidaceae) species. Culturable bacteria and yeasts were isolated and identified by partially sequencing the small subunit...

Over 22,000 species of biotically pollinated flowering plants, including some major agricultural crops, depend primarily on bees capable of floral sonication for pollination services. The ability to sonicate ("buzz") flowers is widespread in bees but not ubiquitous. Despite the prevalence of this pollinator behavior and its importance to natural and agricultural systems, the evolutionary histor...

Boundary formation is a crucial developmental process in plant organogenesis. Boundaries separate cells with distinct identities and act as organizing centers to control the development of adjacent organs. In flower development, initiation of floral primordia requires the formation of the meristem-to-organ (M-O) boundaries and floral organ development depends on the establishment of organ-to-or...

To understand better the role of genes in controlling ovule development, a female-sterile mutant, aintegumenta (ant), was isolated from Arabidopsis. In ovules of this mutant, integuments do not develop and megasporogenesis is blocked at the tetrad stage. As a pleiotropic effect, narrower floral organs arise in reduced numbers. More complete loss of floral organs occurs when the ant mutant is co...

Angiosperm flowers are usually determinate structures that may produce seeds. In some species, flowers can revert from committed flower development back to an earlier developmental phase in a process called floral reversion. The allopolyploid Arabidopsis suecica displays photoperiod-dependent floral reversion in a subset of its flowers, yet little is known about the environmental conditions enh...

The organs of a eudicot flower are specified by four functional classes, termed class A, B, C and E, of MADS domain transcription factors. The combinatorial formation of tetrameric complexes, so called 'floral quartets', between these classes is widely believed to represent the molecular basis of floral organ identity specification. As constituents of all complexes, the class E floral homeotic ...

The diversity of floral forms in nature can be explained largely as adaptations to the diversity of biotic and abiotic selective agents with which different plant species interact. Ecological genetics is the study of the process of adaptation, and therefore is an ideal approach to understanding floral adaptations. Here I review work on selection and genetic variance and covariance of floral tra...

Plant-pollinator interactions are thought to be major drivers of floral trait diversity. However, the relative importance of divergent pollinator-mediated selection vs. neutral processes in floral character evolution has rarely been explored. We tested for adaptive floral trait evolution by comparing differentiation at neutral genetic loci to differentiation at quantitative floral traits in a p...