Nowadays,
one of the most broadly established paradigms in Ecology and Evolution states that
interactions between plants and animals have been one of the major sources of the
current global biological diversity. Specifically, in the case of higher plants,
their interactions with antagonistic (e.g. herbivores) and mutualistic (e.g. pollinators)
animals have promoted the evolution of a broad variety of morphological, functional,
reproductive and chemical traits associated with a spectacular diversification process
( > 250000 species). The study of micro and macroevolutionary processes behind
such extraordinary adaptive radiation, as well as their underlying ecological and
genetic mechanisms, is highly topical in Evolutionary Biology. Such view also constitutes
the conceptual basis of this Research Line.
Results
obtained by this Research Line have contributed in significant ways to the development
of the discipline in late decades by demonstrating the constraining role that historical
and ecological effects exert on reciprocal adaptations between plants and animals,
particularly at a microevolutionary scale. This gives rise to the paradox between
the strong constraints found in the microevolutionary level and the myriad of cases
that, on the other hand, show reciprocal adaptive radiations between plants and
herbivore, pollinator and seed predator animals at a macroevolutionary scale. Contributing
to solve this paradox is a major research objective of the Line, which is being
currently approached through studies of geographical variation in selection gradients;
genetic structure, molecular phylogeography, phylogenetic evolution, and population
genomics.
Our current major aim is to evaluate the significance of evolutionary,
ecological, genetic, historical, and demographic effects, co-occurring at micro
and macroevolutionary scales, on the evolution of vegetative and reproductive plant
traits that are central to their relationships with animals. We intend in the near
future to apply the same approach to some traits of the interacting animals too
(behaviour, morphology, physiology).