Document: REG-3-21-7

Variability vs. convergence in the carnivorous plant-animal interface: Ecological and evolutionary consequences.

ZAMORA, R.*

Departamento de Biologia Animal y Ecologia (Unidad de Ecologia), Universidad de Granada ¹

Abstract:
The outcomes of antagonistic and mutualistic interactions between carnivorous plants and animals may be determined by the abiotic conditions in which the plants grow. I have tested this hypothesis with _Pinguicula vallisneriifolia_, a plant that inhabits wet, rocky habitats that occur in a broad range of irradiance regimes. Along the sun-shade gradient, there were variations in plant traits (e.g. mucilage secretion) and animals that interacted with the plants (prey, pollinators, herbivores, kleptoparasites), even at very restricted spatial scales. Marked, small-scale variability in irradiance conditions results in within-population, site-specific mosaics of animal-plant mutualistic and antagonistic interactions, and hence of selective pressures of animals upon plants. However, evolutionary consequences of within-habitat variability in selective pressures are constrained because of local gene flow. Different results occur when comparing among populations, because of geographic distances between populations and microclimatic differences that alter distributions of animals that interact with the plants. Differences in irradiance across populations both have ecological and evolutionary consequences for plant-animal interactions, and consequently, geographic differentiation could be exacerbated. This evolutionary mechanism, whereby the abiotic characteristics of the region can have greater effects than geographic distances, could be extrapolated to other plant-animal systems in patchy environments, and could be the basis of speciation of many plant species.

Keywords: carnivorous plants, sun-shade gradient, mosaics of plant-animal interactions

This abstract is being presented at: 9:45 AM in session:
Symposium # 19: Carnivorous Plants as Model Ecological Systems.