Factors maintaining floral oil gland polymorphism in a population of Banisteriopsis muricata (Malpighiaceae)
Data files
Sep 03, 2025 version files 31.52 KB
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Bee_visits.txt
19.59 KB
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corolla_measurements.txt
3.93 KB
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NatFruitSet.txt
1.04 KB
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pollen_production.txt
1.09 KB
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r_script.txt
2.14 KB
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README.md
3.72 KB
Abstract
The presence of alternative phenotypes for a trait within a species is considered an important phase of evolutionary transitions. In the plants of the Malpighiaceae family, the oil glands are associated with mutualism with bees specializing in oil collection. This mutualism has maintained the conservative floral design of this family. However, several groups of Malpighiaceae have lost their oil glands, and several species present glandular polymorphisms. In one of these species (Banisteriopsis muricata), this polymorphism is hypothesized to represent automimicry by the eglandular morph, which deceptively attracts pollinators without offering an oil reward. We compared the diversity and behavior of floral visitors, corolla size and pollen production of two morphs (eglandular and glandular) in a Costa Rican population. The global distribution of B. muricata eglandular morph was studied to verify the maintenance of this polymorphism along the geographical range of the species. No evidence of pollination by deception was found since the main pollinator (Monoeca mexicana) performs oil collection movements only in glandular flowers. Meliponini bees, the second most frequent bee visitor, also visits both morphs, collecting only pollen. We observed that the pollination of eglandular individuals does not seem to be affected by the loss of oil glands. The same bee species visits both morphs, and bee visitation rates, natural fruit set and mating system were very similar between glandular and eglandular individuals. Higher pollen production in the eglandular morph and the predominance of pollen collection visits over oil collection visits can explain the high frequencies of eglandular plants observed throughout the distribution of this species. These findings seem to indicate a balance of the adaptive values of the two morphs, resulting in weak selection against the absence of oil glands. The presence of eglandular plants along the B. muricata geographical range, in intermediate frequencies, in old and recent collections, seems to indicate the action of additional selective forces that mantain the polymorphism.
Dataset DOI: 10.5061/dryad.x95x69pwz
Description of the data and file structure
There are four datasets. They were obtained from field and laboratory work in Santa Rosa, Area de Conservacion Guanacaste Costa Rica. The objective of this study was to understand the factors that mantain a glandular polymorphism in a population of the vine Banisteriopsis muricata (Malpighiaceae). The study population has two morphs, the glandular morph with flowers presenting calyx oil glands, and the eglandular without these structures.
In these datasets, NA values mean measurement not taken.
Files and variables
File: corolla_measurements.txt
Description: has the size of different corolla parts of the flowers of eglandular and glandular morphs. The measurements are in mm.
Variables
- Morph (morph of the plant, e=eglandular, g=glandular)
- Flower (flower code)
- Plant (plant code)
- L_PB (length of the banner petal lamina)
- A1_PB (maximum width of the banner petal)
- A2_PB (width of the banner petal at the base before the petal claw)
- L_Ped (length of the banner petal claw)
- L_PL (length of the posterior lateral petal)
- A_PL (width of the posterior lateral petal)
- LC_PB (length of the banner petal lamina without petal claw)
File: pollen_production.txt
Description: presents the number of pollen grains produced by different anther groups of eglandular and glandular flowers. Whole anthers were collected and all the pollen grains were counted, using pollen jelly and microscope.
Variables
- Morph (e=eglandular, g=glandular)
- Plant (plant code)
- Flor (flower code)
- ant_1 (number of pollen grains in anther pair #1)
- ant_2-4 (number of pollen grains in anther pairs #2 and #4)
- ant_3-5 (number of pollen grains in anther pairs #3 and #5)
File: Bee_visits.txt
Description: presents the results of recording videos of inflorescences of glandular and eglandular plants. The file has the number of visits by bee to individual flowers, grouped by morph, plant and inflorescence. The recording time (in hours) is also presented for each filmed inflorescence.
Variables
- Plant (plant code)
- Date (day/month/year)
- Recording_time (recording time in hours)
- Morph (e=eglandular, g=glandular)
- Inf (inflorescence code)
- Flower (flower code)
- Monoeca_p (number of pollen-collecting visits of Monoeca bees to the flower)
- Monoeca_o (number of oil-collecting visits of Monoeca bees to the flower)
- Para_p (number of pollen-collecting visits of Paratetrapedia and Lophopedia bees to the flower)
- Para_o (number of oil-collecting visits of Paratetrapedia and Lophopedia bees to the flower)
- T.fulv (number of visits of Trigona fulviventris bees to the flower)
- Tetragona (number of visits of Tetragona bees to the flower)
File: NatFruitSet.txt
Description: presents the natural fruit set of differents glandular morphs inflorescences, grouped by year and plant or origin.
Variables
- Year (year of collection of inflorescence)
- Inf (inflorescence code)
- Plant (plant code)
- Morfo (e=eglandular, g=glandular)
- Flowers (number of flowers in the inflorescence)
- Mono (number of mono pericarpic fruits in the inflorescence)
- Bi (number of bi pericarpic fruits in the inflorescence)
- Tri (number of tri pericarpic fruits in the inflorescence)
- TotF (total number of fruits in the inflorescence):
File: r_script.txt
The file r_script.txt contains the R command lines to perform the analysis described in the Methods section of the manuscript (R version 4.3.2):