Ehrlich and Raven's postulate (1964) that rapid diversification follows innovation in plant defense has often been invoked a posteriori for plant lineages of unusual diversity and chemical distinctiveness. The postulate can be more rigorously tested by defining a novel class of defense using chemical and/or anatomical criteria, independent of taxonomic lineage. If multiple plant lineages have evolved the new defense type, then they should be consistently more diverse than their sister groups when the latter retain the primitive defensive repertoire. Secretory canals are in independently defined, repeatedly evolved feature that functions to protect plants from herbivores and pathogens. The canals might therefore be expected to allow plant radiation in an adaptive zone of reduced herbivory and disease. The authors quantify the evidence for this hypothesis by comparing the diversities of lineages that have independently evolved canal systems with their sister groups for as many plant lineages as current taxonomic evidence allows. A sign test showed that canal-bearing lineages have consistently higher diversities than their sister groups. -from Authors
CITATION STYLE
Farrell, B. D., Dussourd, D. E., & Mitter, C. (1991). Escalation of plant defense: do latex and resin canals spur plant diversification? American Naturalist, 138(4), 881–900. https://doi.org/10.1086/285258
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