Hydrophilous pollination and breeding system evolution in seagrasses: a phylogenetic approach to the evolutionary ecology of the Cymodoceaceae |
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Authors: | PAUL A. COX C. J. HUMPHRIES |
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Affiliation: | Department of Botany and Range Science, Brigham Young University, Provo, UT 84602, USA;Science Departments: Botany, The Natural History Museum, Cromwell Road, London SW7 5BD, UK |
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Abstract: | COX, P. A. & HUMPHRIES, C. J. 1992. Hydrophilous pollination and breeding system evolution in seagrasses: a phylogenetic approach to the evolutionary ecology of the Cymodoceaceae. A phylogenetic analysis of seagrasses of the Cymodoceaceae shows the Cymodoceaceae to be monophyletic and Posidoniaceae to be their sister group. Information on the pollination ecologies and breeding systems of the various genera of the Cymodoceaceae were plotted onto the consensus tree obtained for the group. From this analysis, it is suggested that the clade composed of the Zosteraceae, Posidoniaceae and Cymodoceaceae evolved from a freshwater hydrophilous ancestor that developed submarine pollination and filiform pollen in association with invasion of the marine environment. Dioecism and surface pollination appear to have evolved in the progenitor of the Cymodoceaceae, and hence the seagrasses of the Cymodoceaceae are dioecious due to common descent rather than to convergent evolutionary processes in extant genera. |
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Keywords: | Abiotic pollination cladistics dioecism marine monocotyledons pollination biology |
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