Morphology varies enormously across clades, and the morphology of a trait may reflect ecological function or the retention of ancestral features. We examine the tension between ecological and phylogenetic correlates of morphological diversity through a case study of pollen grains produced by angiosperms in Barro Colorado Island, Panama (BCI). Using a molecular phylogeny of 730 taxa, we demonstrate a statistically significant association between morphological and genetic distance for these plants. However, the relationship is non‐linear, and while close relatives share more morphological features than distant relatives, above a genetic distance of ~ 0.7 increasingly distant relatives are not more divergent in phenotype. The pollen grains of biotically pollinated and abiotically pollinated plants overlap in morphological space, but certain pollen morphotypes and individual morphological traits are unique to these pollination ecologies. Our data show that the pollen grains of biotically pollinated plants are significantly more morphologically diverse than those of abiotically pollinated plants.

中文翻译：

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新热带雨林花粉形态多样性的系统发育和生态相关性

进化枝之间的形态差异很大，性状的形态可能反映生态功能或祖先特征的保留。我们通过巴拿马巴罗科罗拉多岛 (BCI) 的被子植物产生的花粉粒的案例研究，研究了形态多样性的生态和系统发育相关性之间的紧张关系。使用 730 个分类群的分子系统发育，我们证明了这些植物的形态学和遗传距离之间的统计显着关联。然而，这种关系是非线性的，虽然近亲比远亲共享更多的形态特征，但遗传距离大于 0.7 时，远亲在表型上的差异并不更大。生物授粉和非生物授粉植物的花粉粒在形态空间上重叠，但是某些花粉形态类型和个体形态特征是这些授粉生态所独有的。我们的数据表明，生物授粉植物的花粉粒在形态上明显多于非生物授粉植物的花粉粒。