title: Change of Fate and Staminodial Laminarity as Potential Agents of Floral Diversification in the Zingiberales.
abstract: The evolution of floral morphology in the monocot order Zingiberales shows a trend in which androecial whorl organs are progressively modified into variously conspicuous "petaloid" structures with differing degrees of fertility. Petaloidy of androecial members results from extensive laminarization of an otherwise radially symmetric structure. The genetic basis of the laminarization of androecial members has been addressed through recent candidate gene studies focused on understanding the spatiotemporal expression patterns of genes known to be necessary to floral organ formation. Here, we explore the correlation between gene duplication events and floral and inflorescence morphological diversification across the Zingiberales by inferring ancestral character states and gene copy number using the most widely accepted phylogenetic hypotheses. Our results suggest that the duplication and differential loss of GLOBOSA (GLO) copies is correlated with a change in the degree of the laminarization of androecial members. We also find an association with increased diversification in most families. We hypothesize that retention of paralogs in flower development genes could have led to a developmental shift affecting androecial organs with potential adaptive consequences, thus favoring diversification in some lineages but not others.
authors.affiliation: Department of Food and Animal Production, Autonomous Metropolitan University, Xochimilco, Mexico City, Mexico.|Department of Plant and Microbial Biology, Department of Integrative Biology, and the University and Jepson Herbaria, University of California-Berkeley, Berkeley, California.
authors.forename: Alma
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: PIñeyro-Nelson
authors.affiliation: Programa de Pós-Graduação em Genética e Biodiversidade, Universidade Federal da Bahia, Rua Barão de Geremoabo, Salvador/BA, Brazil.|Department of Biological Sciences, California State University East Bay (CSUEB), Hayward, California.
authors.forename: Ana Maria Rocha De
authors.initials: AM
authors.lastname: Almeida
authors.affiliation: Department of Plant and Microbial Biology, Department of Integrative Biology, and the University and Jepson Herbaria, University of California-Berkeley, Berkeley, California.
authors.forename: Chodon
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Sass
authors.affiliation: Department of Plant and Microbial Biology, Department of Integrative Biology, and the University and Jepson Herbaria, University of California-Berkeley, Berkeley, California.
authors.forename: William James Donaldson
authors.initials: WJ
authors.lastname: Iles
authors.affiliation: Department of Plant and Microbial Biology, Department of Integrative Biology, and the University and Jepson Herbaria, University of California-Berkeley, Berkeley, California.
authors.forename: Chelsea Dvorak
authors.initials: CD
authors.lastname: Specht
mesh_terms: D035264:Flowers / Q000033:anatomy & histology* / Q000235:genetics* / Q000502:physiology; D019862:Zingiberales / Q000033:anatomy & histology* / Q000145:classification / Q000235:genetics* / Q000502:physiology