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Premise: The movement of lineages into novel areas can promote ecological opportunity and adaptive radiation, leading to significant species diversity. Not all studies, however, have identified support for ecological opportunity associated with novel intercontinental colonizations. To gain key insights into the drivers of ecological opportunity, we tested whether intercontinental dispersals resulted in ecological opportunity using the Hydrangeaceae-Loasaceae clade, which has numerous centers of diversity across the globe., Methods: A time-calibrated phylogeny was reconstructed from four molecular markers. We tested for bursts of speciation rates followed by a decrease as expected phylogenetic patterns under an ecological opportunity model. Ancestral ranges were estimated using historical biogeographic analyses to examine the relationships of ancestral distributions and habitats with speciation and extinction rates., Results: Hydrangeaceae and Loasaceae originated in arid Mesoamerica, then dispersed into South America, Eurasia, and eastern North America. Six clades experienced increased diversification rates, but those increases were not associated with transitions into new continental areas. Mentzelia section Bartonia was the only clade that exhibited a burst of speciation followed by a decrease. Both families originated in arid environments and experienced multiple transitions into mesic and tropical environments, but Loasaceae experienced a higher speciation-to-extinction ratio than Hydrangeaceae in the western Nearctic., Conclusions: Dispersal between continents did not trigger speciation rate shifts in Loasaceae and Hydrangeaceae. Instead, shifts occurred in regions inhabited by intrafamilial relatives and were likely driven by climate change in the Miocene, where species in drier microhabitats diversified into newly created habitats., (© 2025 The Author(s). American Journal of Botany published by Wiley Periodicals LLC on behalf of Botanical Society of America.)

Premise: Staminodes are commonly studied in hermaphroditic flowers, in which a fraction of the androecium evolves into infertile structures, but few studies have addressed the evolution of staminodes as they occur through the loss of stamen function in carpellate flowers. Plants of Paronychia (Caryophyllaceae) are monoecious with hermaphroditic flowers with one staminodial whorl, except for the dioecious P. chartacea and P. minima. Dioecious species have carpellate flowers that evolved an additional whorl of staminodes, providing an exceptional opportunity to study a second origin of staminodes in the same flower., Methods: Using scanning electron microscopy, we observed the development of carpellate and staminate flowers to determine whether the developmental pathway of the staminodes in hermaphroditic flowers was co-opted during the evolutionary transition to unisexual flowers., Results: In carpellate flowers, antesepalous staminodes initiate as sterile anthers that develop similar to functioning stamens, but arrest before full development, leaving a rudimentary anther with lateral lobes that correspond to thecae. After antesepalous staminodes arrest, alternisepalous staminodes initiate as structures that correspond with filaments, as they do in staminate and hermaphroditic flowers., Conclusions: The second origin of staminodes in carpellate flowers evolved using a different developmental pathway than what had previously evolved in the alternisepalous whorl. The two androecial whorls in the same flowers are serialogous as members of the androecium, but are paralogous as staminodes on the basis of structural and developmental differences., (© 2023 Botanical Society of America.)

Premise of the Study: A repeated pattern of American amphitropical disjunct species or sister species distributed on either side of the equator has long-fascinated botanists, but the modes of these disjunctions remain untested. We evaluated diaspore morphology to generate hypotheses on probable dispersal mechanisms., Methods: The sizes and structures of diaspores, habit, habitat, distribution, and dispersal units were collected for 108 species from literature searches and herbarium specimens. Variation was evaluated with summary statistics, χ 2 tests with Monte Carlo simulations, ANOVAs, and the nonparametric Mann-Whitney test., Key Results: Seeds were the dispersing diaspore in 38.0% of the species, 45.4 were dispersed as fruits, and the remaining were dispersed as infructescences or spores. Diaspores were epizoochorous (52.8%), anemochorous (20.4%), achorous (15.7%), endozoochorous (8.3%), and hydrochorous (2.8%). Epizoochory was significantly greater than expected. Zoochory occurred more frequently than expected when considering achorous diaspores as animal-dispersed. Most species were associated with wetland, woodland, and grassland habitats. An ANOVA revealed that diaspores associated with hydrochory were larger and anemochory was smaller; all other syndromes were not significantly different., Conclusions: Botanists have long-held the assumption that bird migrations are responsible for amphitropical disjunctions. Our results support this hypothesis, with the majority of these events occurring by external attachment of small fruits. However, our results also indicate that anemochory might play a greater role in producing amphitropical distributions than previously thought and at a greater rate than endozoochory or hydrochory., (© 2017 Botanical Society of America.)

Premise of the Study: Dispersal is a major feature of plant evolution that has many advantages but is not always favored. Wide dispersal, for example, leads to greater seed loss in oceanic-island endemics, and evolution has favored morphologies that limit dispersal. I tested the hypothesis that selection favored limited dispersal on gypsum islands in western North America, where edaphic communities are sparsely vegetated except for a specialized flora that competes poorly with the surrounding flora. •, Methods: I applied a series of comparative phylogenetic approaches to gypsophilic species of Mentzelia section Bartonia (Loasaceae) to investigate the evolution of limited dispersal function in seed wings, which increase primary dispersal by wind. Through these tests, I determined whether narrowed wings were selected for in gypsophilic species. •, Key Results: Gypsophily was derived four to seven times. Seed area was not significantly correlated with gypsophily or wing area. Wing area was significantly smaller in the derived gypsum endemics, supporting the hypothesis in favor of limited dispersal function. A model-fitting approach identified two trait optima in wing area, with gypsum endemics having a lower optimum. •, Conclusions: Evolution into novel ecologies influences morphological evolution. Morphological characters have been selected for limited dispersal following evolution onto gypsum islands. Selection for limited dispersal ability has occurred across animals and plants, both in oceanic and terrestrial systems, which suggests that reduced dispersal ability may be a general process: selection favors limited dispersal if the difference in survival between the habitat of the parent and the surrounding area is great enough.