Homoplasy, Pollination, and Emerging Complexity During the Evolution of Floral Development in the Tropical Gingers (Zingiberales)

With their impressive array of floral diversity and a largely-understood phylogenetic relationships, the Zingiberales provide an ideal model clade to test for the roles of genetic and ecological factors driving floral diversification. Many Zingiberales have close associations with particular suites of pollinators, a species-level interaction that is reflected in their overall floral morphology. Here we first discuss the importance of understanding developmental evolution in a phylogenetic context, then use the evolution of floral morphology across the Zingiberales to test the hypothesis that shifts in rates of diversification among these tropical monocots is correlated with shifts in pollination syndrome, suggesting an important role of pollination specificity in driving speciation and floral diversification in the Zingiberales.