Abstract Detail

Biogeography

Carter, Benjamin [1], Misiewicz, Tracy [2], Roddy, Adam [3], Whittall, Justen [4].

Ecological separation of flower color morphs in the cosmopolitan weed Scarlet Pimpernel (Lysimachia arvensis, Primulaceae).

Flower color polymorphism has been historically associated with pollinator preference, but several recent investigations suggest that ecophysiological tradeoffs may also play a role in maintaining multiple flower colors within species. This study focuses on Scarlet Pimpernel, a European annual with two discrete color morphs (blue and orange), which is introduced on every continent except Antarctica. We used iNaturalist images to construct a dataset of more than 12,000 global records scored for presence of the two color morphs to ask 1) Do occurrences across the native range match predictions established by published greenhouse and field studies, and 2) Do climatic envelope models built on distributions in the native range predict color morph distributions across the introduced ranges on other continents? Consistent with published reports, we found, that the morphs separate along a climatic gradient in Europe with the orange morph occurring predominantly in more northern, temperate climates and the blue morph concentrated in the southern, Mediterranean region. This gradient is generally recreated in some introduced populations (e.g. Australia/New Zealand) but is not consistent globally. For example, the orange morph is dominant in the Mediterranean climatic region in North America. These results, which integrate flower color polymorphism with ecophysiology and invasion biology, provide important new insights into our understanding of the maintenance of flower color polymorphism within species and test the repeatability of correlations between traits and climate across continents.

1 - San Jose State University, Dept. Of Biological Sciences, One Washington Square, San Jose, CA, 95192, United States
2 - University Of Oklahoma, Department Of Microbiology And Plant Biology, Norman, OK, 73019, United States
3 - Florida International University, Institute of Environment, Department of Biological Sciences, Miami, FL
4 - Santa Clara University, 500 El Camino Real, 500 El Camino Real, Biology Department, Santa Clara, CA, 95053, United States

Keywords:
flower color
invasive plants
ecophysiology
species distribution models.

Presentation Type: Oral Paper
Session: BIOGI, Biogeography I
Location: Virtual/Virtual
Date: Monday, July 19th, 2021
Time: 1:45 PM(EDT)
Number: BIOGI006
Abstract ID:425
Candidate for Awards:None