RT Journal Article
T1 Untangling the effects of water availability on flower size: Insights from the largest tropical wetland
A1 Rodrigues, Layla M. A.
A1 Zanata, Thais B.
A1 Aoki, Camila
A1 López Teixido, Alberto
AB Flower size plays a crucial role in the reproduction of animal-pollinated plants. Larger flowers usually increase pollinator visitation and reproductive success, but they are also associated with higher water investment for production and maintenance. Thus, water availability is a relevant factor in determining flower size, which may be consequently reduced in hot and dry environments. However, the phylogenetic relationships across plants may limit the variation in flower size, a strongly conserved trait among closely related species. We tested this hypothesis across 97 animal-pollinated species in the Pantanal, the world's largest tropical wetland. To determine how phylogeny and water availability affect community-level flower size, we quantified the variation of this trait between seasons (dry and rainy), substrates (terrestrial and aquatic), and species (phylogenetic signal). We observed a high variability in flower size, which showed a significant phylogenetic signal. Conversely, we did not detect a significant influence of season and substrate on flower size, although we observed a trend toward larger flowers in aquatic species, especially during the rainy season. Our results demonstrate that phylogeny mostly determines flower size variation in the Pantanal. Our findings also suggest that water availability may still exert evolutionary pressures on flower size, even in a context of phylogenetic conservatism. This study highlights the need to investigate the multiple interacting factors shaping flower size and contributes to a deeper understanding of its variation in response to environmental factors and phylogeny.
PB Wiley
SN 2150-8925
YR 2025
FD 2025-05
LK https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14352/132742
UL https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14352/132742
LA eng
NO Rodrigues, Layla M. A., Thais B. Zanata, Camila Aoki, and Alberto L. Teixido. 2025. “ Untangling the Effects of Water Availability on Flower Size: Insights from the Largest Tropical Wetland.” Ecosphere 16(5): e70244. https://doi.org/10.1002/ecs2.70244
NO Layla M. A. Rodrigues was funded with a MsC scholarship from the Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES, Brazil, Finance Code 001). The study was also partially funded by the Universidade Federal de Mato Grosso do Sul (UFMS/MEC).
NO Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (Brasil)
NO Universidade Federal de Mato Grosso do Sul
DS Docta Complutense
RD 10 abr 2026