Evolution of intraspecific floral variation in a generalist–specialist pollination system

Abstract

Abstract Intraspecific processes impact macroevolutionary patterns through individual variation, selection, and ecological specialization. According to the niche variation hypothesis, the broader ecological niche of generalist species results in an increased morphological variation among individuals either because they are constituted of diversified specialized individuals each exploiting a fraction of the species’ niche or because they are constituted of true generalist individuals that experience relaxed selection. To test this hypothesis, we surveyed the individual floral morphology of species of Antillean Gesneriaceae, a group that has transitioned between specialization for hummingbird pollination and generalization multiple times throughout its evolutionary history. We characterized the profiles of corollas using geometric morphometrics and compared the intraspecific shape variance of specialists and generalists in a phylogenetic context. We used three approaches that differently accounted for the high dimensionality of morphological traits, the ancestral reconstruction of pollination syndromes over time, and the error associated with the estimation of the intraspecific variance. Our findings provide partial support for the niche variation hypothesis. If considering the whole shape in the analysis corroborated this idea, decomposing the shape into principal components indicated that not all aspects of the corolla exhibit the same pattern of variation. Specifically, pollination generalists tend to display greater intraspecific variation than specialists in terms of tubularity, but not of curvature. Accounting for the error in the variance estimation also reduced the support for the hypothesis, suggesting that larger sample sizes may be required to reach stronger conclusions. This study emphasizes the reciprocal influence between plants and their pollinators on floral morphology at different biodiversity scales and suggests that ecological strategies of species can affect patterns of morphological variation at macroevolutionary scales.