Rombaut, L.M.K., Capp, E.J.R., Hughes, E.C. orcid.org/0000-0003-4682-6257 et al. (4 more authors) (2022) The evolution of the traplining pollinator role in hummingbirds : specialization is not an evolutionary dead end. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 289 (1967). 20212484. ISSN 0962-8452
Abstract
Trapliners are pollinators that visit widely dispersed flowers along circuitous foraging routes. The evolution of traplining in hummingbirds is thought to entail morphological specialization through the reciprocal coevolution of longer bills with the long-tubed flowers of widely dispersed plant species. Specialization, such as that exhibited by traplining hummingbirds, is often viewed as both irreversible and an evolutionary dead end. We tested these predictions in a macroevolutionary framework. Specifically, we assessed the relationship between beak morphology and foraging and tested whether transitions to traplining are irreversible and lead to lower rates of diversification as predicted by the hypothesis that specialization is an evolutionary dead end. We find that there have been multiple independent transitions to traplining across the hummingbird phylogeny, but reversals have been rare or incomplete at best. Multiple independent lineages of trapliners have become morphologically specialized, convergently evolving relatively large bills for their body size. Traplining is not an evolutionary dead end however, since trapliners continue to give rise to new traplining species at a rate comparable to non-trapliners.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © 2022 The Authors. Published by the Royal Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/, which permits unrestricted use, provided the original author and source are credited. |
Keywords: | hummingbirds; specialization; diversification |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Sheffield |
Academic Units: | The University of Sheffield > Faculty of Science (Sheffield) > School of Biosciences (Sheffield) > Department of Animal and Plant Sciences (Sheffield) |
Funding Information: | Funder Grant number Natural Environment Research Council NE/T000139/1 |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Sheffield |
Date Deposited: | 23 Feb 2022 12:25 |
Last Modified: | 23 Feb 2022 12:25 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | The Royal Society |
Refereed: | Yes |
Identification Number: | 10.1098/rspb.2021.2484 |
Related URLs: | |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:183957 |