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First published online December 11, 2008; doi:10.3732/ajb.0800016 American Journal of Botany 96: 166-182 (2009) © 2009 Botanical Society of America, Inc.

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Pollination biology of basal angiosperms (ANITA grade)¹

² Cell and Molecular Biology Department, Tulane University, New Orleans, Louisiana 70118 USA ³ Department of Biology, Saint Louis University, St. Louis, Missouri 63103 USA ⁴ United States Department of Agriculture Forest Service, Center for Bottomland Hardwoods Research, P. O. Box 227, Stoneville, Mississippi 38776 USA ⁵ State Key Laboratory of Systematic and Evolutionary Botany, Institute of Botany, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100093, People’s Republic of China ⁶ Department of Ecology and Evolution, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, Tennessee 37996 USA

ABSTRACT

The first three branches of the angiosperm phylogenetic tree consist of eight families with 201 species of plants (the ANITA grade). The oldest flower fossil for the group is dated to the Early Cretaceous (115–125 Mya) and identified to the Nymphaeales. The flowers of extant plants in the ANITA grade are small, and pollen is the edible reward (rarely nectar or starch bodies). Unlike many gymnosperms that secrete "pollination drops," ANITA-grade members examined thus far have a dry-type stigma. Copious secretions of stigmatic fluid are restricted to the Nymphaeales, but this is not nectar. Floral odors, floral thermogenesis (a resource), and colored tepals attract insects in deceit-based pollination syndromes throughout the first three branches of the phylogenetic tree. Self-incompatibility and an extragynoecial compitum occur in some species in the Austrobaileyales. Flies are primary pollinators in six families (10 genera). Beetles are pollinators in five families varying in importance as primary (exclusive) to secondary vectors of pollen. Bees are major pollinators only in the Nymphaeaceae. It is hypothesized that large flowers in Nymphaeaceae are the result of the interaction of heat, floral odors, and colored tepals to trap insects to increase fitness.

Key Words: ANITA grade • basal angiosperms • Coleoptera • Diptera • floral deceit • floral thermogenesis • Hymenoptera • pollination biology

Received for publication 14 January 2008. Accepted for publication 17 September 2008.

FOOTNOTES

¹ This research was supported by the National Basic Research Program of China (973 program no. 2007CB411600).

⁷ Author for correspondence (e-mail: lthien{at}tulane.edu)

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