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Artemis Anest

@arteanest.bsky.social

🌿Assistant Professor at @umontpellier.bsky.social & @umramap.bsky.social🌿 🌍Evolutionary ecologist | Plant architecturist🌳 🌵Exploring biodiversity of plant forms & functions🌸

11 Posts82 Follower121 Folgt
Annals of Botany@annbot.bsky.social · 3w ago

The researchers asked two key questions: 🌱 Are reproductive and vegetative traits linked throughout evolution? 🌎 Did these traits help species disperse across continents and establish in new environments? (3/8)

Annals of Botany@annbot.bsky.social · 3w ago

By analysing genomic data alongside plant architecture, fruit traits and global climate and distribution data, they reconstructed how these traits evolved over millions of years. (4/8)

Figure showing how did growth forms and fruits evolve in Thymelaeaceae. This evolutionary tree traces changes in plant architecture and fruit type across 88 species. Each coloured branch represents the most likely ancestral trait, revealing how different growth forms evolved over time. Bright, fleshy fruits (⭐) evolved independently at least nine times, while the dotted circles mark major periods of global environmental change.
Annals of Botany@annbot.bsky.social · 3w ago

One surprising result: 🍒 Red, fleshy fruits evolved multiple times, but they didn't drive long-distance dispersal between continents as might be expected. Instead, they greatly increased the likelihood of species shifting into new ecological niches. (5/8)

Figure showing how did Thymelaeaceae spread and adapt over time. This evolutionary tree reconstructs the most likely ancestral habitats and geographic distributions of 88 species. Coloured branches show the environments their ancestors likely occupied, while the outer ring indicates whether they lived in open (yellow) or closed (black) habitats.
Annals of Botany@annbot.bsky.social · 3w ago

Meanwhile, changes in plant architecture were closely linked to habitat. 🌿 Different growth forms were associated with different levels of canopy openness, and major shifts between biomes often coincided with changes in plant architecture. (6/8)

Figure showing how different environments favour different plant strategies. This figure compares the diversity of growth forms and fruit types across habitats and climates in the Thymelaeaceae family. (a) Fruit types across different plant architectures. (b) Growth forms in open versus closed habitats. (c) Growth forms across five climatic and environmental niches. (d) Fruit types in open versus closed habitats. (e) Fruit types across the five environmental niches. Together, these comparisons reveal how plant architecture and fruit traits are associated with different ecological conditions and evolutionary strategies.
Annals of Botany@annbot.bsky.social · 3w ago

Together, the findings suggest that different traits responded to different evolutionary pressures: 🐦 Reproductive traits were shaped mainly by dispersal agents. ☀️ Vegetative traits evolved primarily in response to environmental conditions. (7/8)

Figure showing ethe volutionary history of fruit types, plant growth forms and habitats across major lineages of the Thymelaeaceae. The numbered events (1–9) highlight key steps in the evolutionary and biogeographic history of the family, including changes in fruit type, plant architecture and habitat. These include (1) the origin of Thymelaeaceae; (2) the emergence of Thymelaeoideae, accompanied by a shift from fruits that split open to dry fruits that remain closed; (3) the emergence of the African lineage, which retained ancestral characteristics; (4) the diversification of the Lasiosiphon group alongside shifts from humid tropical forests to more open, humid savannas and changes in plant architecture; (4′) the divergence of the Eurasian lineage, associated with changes in plant architecture and a transition from humid forests to more open, semi-arid habitats; (5) further diversification associated with a shift towards open, semi-arid environments; (6) the colonization of South America from Africa, accompanied by the evolution of bright, fleshy fruits; (7) the colonization of Australia by the Pimelea group, followed by a shift towards arid environments; (8) the colonization of North America by the Dirca lineage, accompanied by a transition to temperate habitats; and (9) the diversification of the Wikstroemia group, followed by its expansion into Australasia and further changes in plant architecture and habitat. Paleomaps were generated using the Mollweide projection following the model of Merdith et al. (2021) with the R package RGPlates (Kocsis et al. 2024).
Annals of Botany@annbot.bsky.social · 3w ago

Rather than evolving in parallel, reproductive and vegetative traits followed coordinated, but independent, evolutionary pathways, helping Thymelaeaceae diversify into habitats around the world.(8/8) 👉 doi.org/rh3j @arteanest.bsky.social #PlantScience #Evolution #AoBpapers #Biogeography

Go and grow: coordinated evolution of vegetative and reproductive traits facilitated niche diversification in Thymelaeaceae

AbstractBackground and Aims. Macroevolutionary studies of species-rich plant lineages have often focused on processes behind either their large distributio

doi.org

Anne-Laure D 🌿@aldpaleo.bsky.social · 9mo ago

Check our paper with @paleobotanist.bsky.social on root suckering in a Permian glossopterid from Antarctica 🌳⛏️🇦🇶 It's the 1st report of root suckering in this group & the oldest in the fossil record doi.org/10.1002/ajb2... 🧵1/5 #paleobotany #botany @umramap.bsky.social @cnrsecologie.bsky.social

Production of root suckers in Glossopteridales from the late Permian of Antarctica

Premise The Glossopteridales are an extinct group of seed plants that dominated mid to high latitude floras of the supercontinent Gondwana during the Permian (298–251 million years ago). Reconstruct.....

doi.org

Amypteride🏳️‍⚧️🔻🕷🦂@amypteride.bsky.social · 10mo ago

You know what's cool too ? Plants ! We had 3 of them this year : the cretaceous conifer Sequoites🌲, a really close relative of our modern seed plants called Runcaria🌾, and Asterophyllites, which is the given name of the leaves from carboniferous tree-size horsetails like Calamites🌿

From top to bottom : Branches and cones of Sequoites, a cretaceous conifer closely related to cypress family (Cupressaceae) Asterophyllites equisetiformis, aka leaves of the lycopod relative Calamites, a tree-size plant that live during the Carboniferous in what's now Europe. Reproductive structure of Runcaria heinzelinii, showing spiraling strings, leaves and an upright structure at the center
The Linnean Society of London@linneansociety.bsky.social · 10mo ago

One of our Fellows has co-curated a fascinating exibition of Indian botanical art. Henry Noltie & Sita Reddy chose 52 drawings by Indian artists, and where possible identified the artists responsible. 'Flora Indica’ is on at the Sherwood Gallery, Kew until 12 April 2026. Images © RBG Kew.

A chinese fan palm, drawn in high levels of detail. Attributed to Vishnuprasad c. 1825Papaver falconer, a poppy. Artist unknown, 1840Painting of a sunflower. Its petals are bright yellow and it has circular black centre. artist unknown, c 1795.