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(American Journal of Botany. 2008;95:521-530.) doi: 10.3732/ajb.2007333 © 2008 Botanical Society of America, Inc. |
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Anatomy and Morphology |
2 School of Plant Science, University of Tasmania, Private Bag 55, Hobart 7001, Australia 3 Royal Botanic Gardens, Sydney, Mrs Macquaries Road, Sydney 2002, Australia 4 School of Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of Adelaide, Adelaide 5005, Australia
ABSTRACT
Sunken, covered, and encrypted stomata have been anecdotally linked with dry climates and reduced transpiration and therefore have been used to infer dry palaeoclimates from fossils. This study assesses the evolutionary and ecological associations of such stomatal protection in a model system—the diverse southern hemisphere family Proteaceae. Analyses were based on the morphology of over 1400 Australian, South African, New Caledonian, New Zealand, and South American species, anatomy of over 300 of these species, and bioclimatic data from all 1109 Australian species. Ancestral state reconstruction revealed that five or six evolutionary transitions explain over 98% of the dry climate species in the family, with a few other, minor invasions of dry climates. Deep encryption, i.e., stomata in deep pits, in grooves, enclosed by tightly revolute margins or strongly overarched by cuticle, evolved at least 11 times in very dry environments. Other forms of stomatal protection (sunken but not closely encrypted stomata, papillae, and layers of hairs covering the stomata) also evolved repeatedly, but had no systematic association with dry climates. These data are evidence for a strong distinction in function, with deep encryption being an adaptation to aridity, whereas broad pits and covered stomata have more complex relations to climate.
Key Words: ancestral state reconstruction bioclimatic modeling palaeoclimate papillae phyloclimatic analysis Proteaceae sclerophylly stomatal encryption water relations xeromorphy
Received for publication 19 October 2007. Accepted for publication 23 February 2008.
FOOTNOTES
1 The authors thank G. Sankowsky, M. Bradford, A. Leigh, D. Rathbone, R. Elick, and staff at the Royal Sydney, Mt Annan, Mt Tomah, and Royal Tasmanian Botanic Gardens for assistance with collecting specimens. A Hansjorg Eichler student award to R.A.D. from the Australian Systematic Botany Society award assisted this work.
5 Author for correspondence (greg.jordan{at}utas.edu.au)
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