Misplaced Pages

#603396

90-488: Triteleia is a genus of monocotyledon flowering plants also known as triplet lilies . The 16 species are native to western North America , from British Columbia south to California and east to Wyoming and Arizona , with one species in northwestern Mexico . However, they are most common in California . They are perennial plants growing from a fibrous corm roughly spherical in shape. They get their name from

180-444: A phylogenetic tree to be constructed for the flowering plants. The establishment of major new clades necessitated a departure from the older but widely used classifications such as Cronquist and Thorne, based largely on morphology rather than genetic data. These developments complicated discussions on plant evolution and necessitated a major taxonomic restructuring. This DNA based molecular phylogenetic research confirmed on

270-517: A "species flock" of up to 1000 endemic species. Only seven cichlid species in Lake Malawi are not a part of the species flock: the Eastern happy ( Astatotilapia calliptera ), the sungwa ( Serranochromis robustus ), and five tilapia species (genera Oreochromis and Coptodon ). All of the other cichlid species in the lake are descendants of a single original colonist species, which itself

360-719: A classification of flowering plants (florifera) based on a division by the number of cotyledons, but developed his ideas over successive publications, coining the terms Monocotyledones and Dicotyledones in 1703, in the revised version of his Methodus ( Methodus plantarum emendata ), as a primary method for dividing them, Herbae floriferae, dividi possunt, ut diximus, in Monocotyledones & Dicotyledones (Flowering plants, can be divided, as we have said, into Monocotyledons & Dicotyledons). Although Linnaeus (1707–1778) did not utilise Ray's discovery, basing his own classification solely on floral reproductive morphology ,

450-469: A consequence the word "brodiaea" has been incorporated into some of their common names. A 2002 phylogenetic review of related genera found four clades within Triteleia that were all supported with 100 percent jackknife resampling values: This Asparagaceae article is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Monocotyledon Monocotyledons have almost always been recognized as

540-855: A diagnostic point of view the number of cotyledons is neither a particularly useful characteristic (as they are only present for a very short period in a plant's life), nor is it completely reliable. The single cotyledon is only one of a number of modifications of the body plan of the ancestral monocotyledons, whose adaptive advantages are poorly understood, but may have been related to adaption to aquatic habitats , prior to radiation to terrestrial habitats. Nevertheless, monocots are sufficiently distinctive that there has rarely been disagreement as to membership of this group, despite considerable diversity in terms of external morphology. However, morphological features that reliably characterise major clades are rare. Thus monocots are distinguishable from other angiosperms both in terms of their uniformity and diversity. On

630-474: A group, but with various taxonomic ranks and under several different names. The APG III system of 2009 recognises a clade called "monocots" but does not assign it to a taxonomic rank. The monocotyledons include about 70,000 species, about a quarter of all angiosperms. The largest family in this group (and in the flowering plants as a whole) by number of species are the orchids (family Orchidaceae ), with more than 20,000 species. About 12,000 species belong to

720-573: A mixture of characteristics. Nymphaeaceae (water lilies) have reticulate veins, a single cotyledon, adventitious roots, and a monocot-like vascular bundle. These examples reflect their shared ancestry. Nevertheless, this list of traits is generally valid, especially when contrasting monocots with eudicots , rather than non-monocot flowering plants in general. Monocot apomorphies (characteristics derived during radiation rather than inherited from an ancestral form) include herbaceous habit, leaves with parallel venation and sheathed base, an embryo with

810-415: A new adaptive zone. Sources of ecological opportunity can be the loss of antagonists ( competitors or predators ), the evolution of a key innovation, or dispersal to a new environment. Any one of these ecological opportunities has the potential to result in an increase in population size and relaxed stabilizing (constraining) selection. As genetic diversity is positively correlated with population size

900-605: A new environment might take place under the following conditions: A 2020 study found there to be no direct causal relationship between the proportionally most comparable mass radiations and extinctions in terms of "co-occurrence of species", substantially challenging the hypothesis of "creative mass extinctions". Darwin's finches on the Galapagos Islands are a model system for the study of adaptive radiation. Today represented by approximately 15 species, Darwin's finches are Galapagos endemics famously adapted for

990-483: A proximal leaf base or hypophyll and a distal hyperphyll. In monocots the hypophyll tends to be the dominant part in contrast to other angiosperms. From these, considerable diversity arises. Mature monocot leaves are generally narrow and linear, forming a sheathing around the stem at its base, although there are many exceptions. Leaf venation is of the striate type, mainly arcuate-striate or longitudinally striate (parallel), less often palmate-striate or pinnate-striate with

SECTION 10

#1732787631604

1080-582: A short axial body bearing leaves whose bases store food. Additional outer non-storage leaves may form a protective function (Tillich, Figure 12). Other storage organs may be tubers or corms , swollen axes. Tubers may form at the end of underground runners and persist. Corms are short lived vertical shoots with terminal inflorescences and shrivel once flowering has occurred. However, intermediate forms may occur such as in Crocosmia (Asparagales). Some monocots may also produce shoots that grow directly down into

1170-617: A similar position as a major division of the flowering plants throughout the nineteenth century, with minor variations. George Bentham and Hooker (1862–1883) used Monocotyledones, as would Wettstein , while August Eichler used Mononocotyleae and Engler , following de Candolle, Monocotyledoneae. In the twentieth century, some authors used alternative names such as Bessey 's (1915) Alternifoliae and Cronquist 's (1966) Liliatae. Later (1981) Cronquist changed Liliatae to Liliopsida, usages also adopted by Takhtajan simultaneously. Thorne (1992) and Dahlgren (1985) also used Liliidae as

1260-531: A single ancestor, this process results in the speciation and phenotypic adaptation of an array of species exhibiting different morphological and physiological traits. The prototypical example of adaptive radiation is finch speciation on the Galapagos (" Darwin's finches "), but examples are known from around the world. Four features can be used to identify an adaptive radiation: Adaptive radiations are thought to be triggered by an ecological opportunity or

1350-425: A single cotyledon, an atactostele , numerous adventitious roots, sympodial growth, and trimerous (3 parts per whorl ) flowers that are pentacyclic (5 whorled) with 3 sepals, 3 petals, 2 whorls of 3 stamens each, and 3 carpels. In contrast, monosulcate pollen is considered an ancestral trait, probably plesiomorphic . The distinctive features of the monocots have contributed to the relative taxonomic stability of

1440-401: A smaller group were grass-like plants with long straight parallel veins. In doing so he distinguished between the dicotyledons, and the latter (grass-like) monocotyledon group, although he had no formal names for the two groups. Formal description dates from John Ray 's studies of seed structure in the 17th century. Ray, who is often considered the first botanical systematist , observed

1530-491: A specialized feeding behavior (although one species, the Cocos finch ( Pinaroloxias inornata ), is not found in the Galapagos but on the island of Cocos south of Costa Rica ). Darwin's finches are not actually finches in the true sense, but are members of the tanager family Thraupidae , and are derived from a single ancestor that arrived in the Galapagos from mainland South America perhaps just 3 million years ago. Excluding

1620-686: A synonym. Taxonomists had considerable latitude in naming this group, as the Monocotyledons were a group above the rank of family. Article 16 of the ICBN allows either a descriptive botanical name or a name formed from the name of an included family. In summary they have been variously named, as follows: Over the 1980s, a more general review of the classification of angiosperms was undertaken. The 1990s saw considerable progress in plant phylogenetics and cladistic theory, initially based on rbcL gene sequencing and cladistic analysis, enabling

1710-509: A typical inverted conical shape of the basal primary axis ( see Tillich, Figure 1). The limited conductivity also contributes to limited branching of the stems. Despite these limitations a wide variety of adaptive growth forms has resulted (Tillich, Figure 2) from epiphytic orchids (Asparagales) and bromeliads (Poales) to submarine Alismatales (including the reduced Lemnoideae ) and mycotrophic Burmanniaceae (Dioscreales) and Triuridaceae (Pandanales). Other forms of adaptation include

1800-481: A wide range of ecological roles and morphological characteristics. Cichlids in these lakes fill nearly all of the roles typically filled by many fish families, including those of predators, scavengers, and herbivores, with varying dentitions and head shapes to match their dietary habits. In each case, the radiation events are only a few million years old, making the high level of speciation particularly remarkable. Several factors could be responsible for this diversity:

1890-466: Is a broad sketch only, not invariably applicable, as there are a number of exceptions. The differences indicated are more true for monocots versus eudicots . A number of these differences are not unique to the monocots, and, while still useful, no one single feature will infallibly identify a plant as a monocot. For example, trimerous flowers and monosulcate pollen are also found in magnoliids , and exclusively adventitious roots are found in some of

SECTION 20

#1732787631604

1980-518: Is a unique egg-brooding species, with 15 cm-long males amassing collections of shells and guarding them in the hopes of attracting females (about 6 cm in length) to lay eggs in these shells. These dominant males must defend their territories from three types of rival: (1) other dominant males looking to steal shells; (2) younger, "sneaker" males looking to fertilize eggs in a dominant male's territory; and (3) tiny, 2–4 cm "parasitic dwarf" males that also attempt to rush in and fertilize eggs in

2070-685: Is also the site of a separate major floral adaptive radiation event: the Hawaiian lobelioids . The Hawaiian lobelioids are significantly more speciose than the silverswords, perhaps because they have been present in Hawaii for so much longer: they descended from a single common ancestor who arrived in the archipelago up to 15 million years ago. Today the Hawaiian lobelioids form a clade of over 125 species, including succulents, trees, shrubs, epiphytes, etc. Many species have been lost to extinction and many of

2160-405: Is believed to have formed 9–12 million years ago, putting a recent cap on the age of the lake's cichlid fauna. Many of Tanganyika's cichlids live very specialized lifestyles. The giant or emperor cichlid ( Boulengerochromis microlepis ) is a piscivore often ranked the largest of all cichlids (though it competes for this title with South America's Cichla temensis , the speckled peacock bass). It

2250-427: Is believed to have originated in Hawaii no more than 6 million years ago, making this one of Hawaii's youngest adaptive radiation events. This means that the silverswords evolved on Hawaii's modern high islands, and descended from a single common ancestor that arrived on Kauai from western North America. The closest modern relatives of the silverswords today are California tarweeds of the family Asteraceae . Hawaii

2340-540: Is famously home to many piscivorous cichlid species, some of which feed by sucking the contents out of mouthbrooding females' mouths. Victoria's cichlids constitute a far younger radiation than even that of Lake Malawi, with estimates of the age of the flock ranging from 200,000 years to as little as 14,000. Hawaii has served as the site of a number of adaptive radiation events, owing to its isolation, recent origin, and large land area. The three most famous examples of these radiations are presented below, though insects like

2430-433: Is quite possibly the Hawaiian silverswords , named for alpine desert-dwelling Argyroxiphium species with long, silvery leaves that live for up to 20 years before growing a single flowering stalk and then dying. The Hawaiian silversword alliance consists of twenty-eight species of Hawaiian plants which, aside from the namesake silverswords, includes trees, shrubs, vines, cushion plants, and more. The silversword alliance

2520-424: Is the largest species of Darwin's finch and has the thickest beak for breaking open the toughest seeds, the small ground finch ( Geospiza fuliginosa ) has a smaller beak for eating smaller seeds, and the medium ground finch ( Geospiza fortis ) has a beak of intermediate size for optimal consumption of intermediately sized seeds (relative to G. magnirostris and G. fuliginosa ). There is some overlap: for example,

2610-499: Is the name that has been most commonly used since the publication of the Angiosperm Phylogeny Group (APG) system in 1998 and regularly updated since. Within the angiosperms, there are two major grades , a small early branching basal grade, the basal angiosperms (ANA grade) with three lineages and a larger late branching grade, the core angiosperms (mesangiosperms) with five lineages, as shown in

2700-593: Is the site from which nearly all the cichlid lineages of East Africa (including both riverine and lake species) originated. Thus, the species in the lake constitute a single adaptive radiation event but do not form a single monophyletic clade . Lake Tanganyika is also the least speciose of the three largest African Great Lakes, with only around 200 species of cichlid; however, these cichlids are more morphologically divergent and ecologically distinct than their counterparts in lakes Malawi and Victoria, an artifact of Lake Tanganyika's older cichlid fauna. Lake Tanganyika itself

2790-759: Is their growth pattern, lacking a lateral meristem ( cambium ) that allows for continual growth in diameter with height ( secondary growth ), and therefore this characteristic is a basic limitation in shoot construction. Although largely herbaceous, some arboraceous monocots reach great height, length and mass. The latter include agaves , palms , pandans , and bamboos . This creates challenges in water transport that monocots deal with in various ways. Some, such as species of Yucca , develop anomalous secondary growth, while palm trees utilise an anomalous primary growth form described as establishment growth ( see Vascular system ). The axis undergoes primary thickening, that progresses from internode to internode, resulting in

Triteleia - Misplaced Pages Continue

2880-499: Is thought that giant cichlids spawn only a single time, breeding in their third year and defending their young until they reach a large size, before dying of starvation some time thereafter. The three species of Altolamprologus are also piscivores, but with laterally compressed bodies and thick scales enabling them to chase prey into thin cracks in rocks without damaging their skin. Plecodus straeleni has evolved large, strangely curved teeth that are designed to scrape scales off of

2970-555: Is used to probe the wood underneath for insects. Meanwhile, the ʻiʻiwi ( Drepanis coccinea ) has a very long curved beak for reaching nectar deep in Lobelia flowers. An entire clade of Hawaiian honeycreepers, the tribe Psittirostrini , is composed of thick-billed, mostly seed-eating birds, like the Laysan finch ( Telespiza cantans ). In at least some cases, similar morphologies and behaviors appear to have evolved convergently among

3060-683: Is usually fugacious (short lived). Some of the more persistent perigones demonstrate thermonastic opening and closing (responsive to changes in temperature). About two thirds of monocots are zoophilous , predominantly by insects . These plants need to advertise to pollinators and do so by way of phaneranthous (showy) flowers. Such optical signalling is usually a function of the tepal whorls but may also be provided by semaphylls (other structures such as filaments , staminodes or stylodia which have become modified to attract pollinators). However, some monocot plants may have aphananthous (inconspicuous) flowers and still be pollinated by animals. In these

3150-721: Is whose pulp is divided into two lobes and a radicle... 2. Such which neither spring out of the ground with seed leaves nor have their pulp divided into lobes John Ray (1674), pp. 164, 166 Since this paper appeared a year before the publication of Malpighi 's Anatome Plantarum (1675–1679), Ray has the priority. At the time, Ray did not fully realise the importance of his discovery but progressively developed this over successive publications. And since these were in Latin, "seed leaves" became folia seminalia and then cotyledon , following Malpighi . Malpighi and Ray were familiar with each other's work, and Malpighi in describing

3240-490: The Greater Antilles ( Cuba , Hispaniola , Puerto Rico , and Jamaica ) have adaptively radiated in separate, convergent ways. On each of these islands, anoles have evolved with such a consistent set of morphological adaptations that each species can be assigned to one of six " ecomorphs ": trunk–ground, trunk–crown, grass–bush, crown–giant, twig, and trunk. Take for example crown–giants from each of these islands:

3330-593: The Piperaceae . Similarly, at least one of these traits, parallel leaf veins, is far from universal among the monocots. Broad leaves and reticulate leaf veins, features typical of dicots, are found in a wide variety of monocot families: for example, Trillium , Smilax (greenbriar), Pogonia (an orchid), and the Dioscoreales (yams). Potamogeton and Paris quadrifolia (herb-paris) are examples of monocots with tetramerous flowers. Other plants exhibit

3420-450: The cladogram . Amborellales Nymphaeales Austrobaileyales magnoliids Chloranthales monocots Ceratophyllales eudicots While the monocotyledons have remained extremely stable in their outer borders as a well-defined and coherent monophylectic group, the deeper internal relationships have undergone considerable flux, with many competing classification systems over time. Historically, Bentham (1877), considered

3510-537: The dichotomy of cotyledon structure in his examination of seeds. He reported his findings in a paper read to the Royal Society on 17 December 1674, entitled "A Discourse on the Seeds of Plants". The greatest number of plants that come of seed spring at first out of the earth with two leaves which being for the most part of a different figure from the succeeding leaves are by our gardeners not improperly called

3600-440: The eudicots are the largest and most diversified angiosperm radiations , accounting for 22.8% and 74.2% of all angiosperm species respectively. Of these, the grass family (Poaceae) is the most economically important, which together with the orchids Orchidaceae account for half of the species diversity, accounting for 34% and 17% of all monocots respectively, and are among the largest families of angiosperms. They are also among

3690-530: The lilioid monocots ; major cereal grains ( maize , rice , barley , rye , oats , millet , sorghum and wheat ) in the grass family ; and forage grasses ( Poales ) as well as woody tree-like palm trees ( Arecales ), bamboo , reeds and bromeliads (Poales), bananas and ginger ( Zingiberales ) in the commelinid monocots , as well as both emergent (Poales, Acorales ) and aroids , as well as floating or submerged aquatic plants such as seagrass ( Alismatales ). The most important distinction

Triteleia - Misplaced Pages Continue

3780-418: The phyletic system that superseded it in the late nineteenth century, based on an understanding of the acquisition of characteristics. He also made the crucial observation Ex hac seminum divisione sumum potest generalis plantarum distinctio, eaque meo judicio omnium prima et longe optima, in eas sci. quae plantula seminali sunt bifolia aut διλόβω, et quae plantula sem. adulta analoga. (From this division of

3870-471: The suffix -florae was replaced with -anae ( e.g. Alismatanae ) and the number of superorders expanded to ten with the addition of Bromelianae, Cyclanthanae and Pandananae. Molecular studies have both confirmed the monophyly of the monocots and helped elucidate relationships within this group. The APG system does not assign the monocots to a taxonomic rank, instead recognizing a monocots clade. However, there has remained some uncertainty regarding

3960-403: The Cocos finch, each species of Darwin's finch is generally widely distributed in the Galapagos and fills the same niche on each island. For the ground finches, this niche is a diet of seeds, and they have thick bills to facilitate the consumption of these hard materials. The ground finches are further specialized to eat seeds of a particular size: the large ground finch ( Geospiza magnirostris )

4050-609: The Cuban Anolis luteogularis , Hispaniola's Anolis ricordii , Puerto Rico's Anolis cuvieri , and Jamaica's Anolis garmani (Cuba and Hispaniola are both home to more than one species of crown–giant). These anoles are all large, canopy-dwelling species with large heads and large lamellae (scales on the undersides of the fingers and toes that are important for traction in climbing), and yet none of these species are particularly closely related and appear to have evolved these similar traits independently. The same can be said of

4140-430: The Hawaiian drosophilid flies and Hyposmocoma moths have also undergone adaptive radiation. The Hawaiian honeycreepers form a large, highly morphologically diverse species group of birds that began radiating in the early days of the Hawaiian archipelago. While today only 17 species are known to persist in Hawaii (3 more may or may not be extinct), there were more than 50 species prior to Polynesian colonization of

4230-533: The Hawaiian honeycreepers; for example, the short, pointed beaks of Loxops and Oreomystis evolved separately despite once forming the justification for lumping the two genera together. The Hawaiian honeycreepers are believed to have descended from a single common ancestor some 15 to 20 million years ago, though estimates range as low as 3.5 million years. Adaptive radiation is not a strictly vertebrate phenomenon, and examples are also known from among plants. The most famous example of adaptive radiation in plants

4320-493: The Malawi species flock are mouth-brooders , meaning the female keeps her eggs in her mouth until they hatch; in almost all species, the eggs are also fertilized in the female's mouth, and in a few species, the females continue to guard their fry in their mouth after they hatch. Males of most species display predominantly blue coloration when mating. However, a number of particularly divergent species are known from Malawi, including

4410-733: The ability to increase the width of a stem ( secondary growth ) via the same kind of vascular cambium found in non-monocot woody plants . However, some monocots do have secondary growth; because this does not arise from a single vascular cambium producing xylem inwards and phloem outwards, it is termed "anomalous secondary growth". Examples of large monocots which either exhibit secondary growth, or can reach large sizes without it, are palms ( Arecaceae ), screwpines ( Pandanaceae ), bananas ( Musaceae ), Yucca , Aloe , Dracaena , and Cordyline . The monocots form one of five major lineages of mesangiosperms (core angiosperms), which in themselves form 99.95% of all angiosperms . The monocots and

4500-462: The angiosperms. Correlation with morphological criteria showed that the defining feature was not cotyledon number but the separation of angiosperms into two major pollen types, uniaperturate ( monosulcate and monosulcate-derived) and triaperturate (tricolpate and tricolpate-derived), with the monocots situated within the uniaperturate groups. The formal taxonomic ranking of Monoctyledons thus became replaced with monocots as an informal clade. This

4590-422: The archipelago (between 18 and 21 species have gone extinct since the discovery of the islands by westerners). The Hawaiian honeycreepers are known for their beaks, which are specialized to satisfy a wide range of dietary needs: for example, the beak of the ʻakiapōlāʻau ( Hemignathus wilsoni ) is characterized by a short, sharp lower mandible for scraping bark off of trees, and the much longer, curved upper mandible

SECTION 50

#1732787631604

4680-515: The availability of a multitude of niches probably favored specialization, as few other fish taxa are present in the lakes (meaning that sympatric speciation was the most probable mechanism for initial specialization). Also, continual changes in the water level of the lakes during the Pleistocene (which often turned the largest lakes into several smaller ones) could have created the conditions for secondary allopatric speciation. Lake Tanganyika

4770-510: The clade of interest) divergence times in mya (million years ago). Acorales Alismatales Petrosaviales Dioscoreales (115 MYA) Pandanales (91 MYA) Adaptive radiation In evolutionary biology , adaptive radiation is a process in which organisms diversify rapidly from an ancestral species into a multitude of new forms, particularly when a change in the environment makes new resources available, alters biotic interactions or opens new environmental niches . Starting with

4860-421: The climbing vines of Araceae (Alismatales) which use negative phototropism ( skototropism ) to locate host trees ( i.e. the darkest area), while some palms such as Calamus manan ( Arecales ) produce the longest shoots in the plant kingdom, up to 185 m long. Other monocots, particularly Poales , have adopted a therophyte life form . The cotyledon, the primordial Angiosperm leaf consists of

4950-559: The collective biomass of the Victoria cichlid species flock has decreased substantially and an unknown number of species have become extinct. However, the original range of morphological and behavioral diversity seen in the lake's cichlid fauna is still mostly present today, if endangered. These again include cichlids specialized for niches across the trophic spectrum, as in Tanganyika and Malawi, but again, there are standouts. Victoria

5040-573: The colubroid faunas in the rest of the world. These Madagascan examples are significantly older than most of the other examples presented here: Madagascar's fauna has been evolving in isolation since the island split from India some 88 million years ago, and the Mantellidae originated around 50 mya. Older examples are known: the K-Pg extinction event , which caused the disappearance of the dinosaurs and most other reptilian megafauna 65 million years ago,

5130-484: The cotyledons were critical to the development of the plant, proof that Ray required for his theory. In his Methodus plantarum nova Ray also developed and justified the "natural" or pre-evolutionary approach to classification, based on characteristics selected a posteriori in order to group together taxa that have the greatest number of shared characteristics. This approach, also referred to as polythetic would last till evolutionary theory enabled Eichler to develop

5220-420: The dominant male's territory. These parasitic dwarf males never grow to the size of dominant males, and the male offspring of dominant and parasitic dwarf males grow with 100% fidelity into the form of their fathers. A number of other highly specialized Tanganyika cichlids exist aside from these examples, including those adapted for life in open lake water up to 200m deep. The cichlids of Lake Malawi constitute

5310-404: The dominant members of many plant communities. The monocots are one of the major divisions of the flowering plants or angiosperms. They have been recognized as a natural group since the sixteenth century when Lobelius (1571), searching for a characteristic to group plants by, decided on leaf form and their venation . He observed that the majority had broad leaves with net-like venation, but

5400-419: The exact relationships between the major lineages, with a number of competing models (including APG). The APG system establishes eleven orders of monocots. These form three grades, the alismatid monocots , lilioid monocots and the commelinid monocots by order of branching, from early to late. In the following cladogram numbers indicate crown group (most recent common ancestor of the sampled species of

5490-407: The expanded population will have more genetic diversity compared to the ancestral population. With reduced stabilizing selection phenotypic diversity can also increase. In addition, intraspecific competition will increase, promoting divergent selection to use a wider range of resources. This ecological release provides the potential for ecological speciation and thus adaptive radiation. Occupying

SECTION 60

#1732787631604

5580-802: The fact that all parts of their flowers come in threes. The Angiosperm Phylogeny Group 's 2009 revision placed the genus in family Asparagaceae , subfamily Brodiaeoideae (having previously placed treated Brodiaeoideae as a separate family Themidaceae). Other modern authors place it in the family Alliaceae . Both these families are in the order Asparagales . There are currently 16 recognized species in Triteleia . One species, Triteleia ixioides , has five well-defined subspecies. Varieties and subspecies have been proposed within several other Triteleia species, but these are no longer widely accepted. Some common species that are now placed in genus Triteleia were formerly placed in genus Brodiaea , and as

5670-688: The family Vangidae are marked by very distinct beak shapes to suit their ecological roles. Madagascan mantellid frogs have radiated into forms that mirror other tropical frog faunas, with the brightly colored mantellas ( Mantella ) having evolved convergently with the Neotropical poison dart frogs of Dendrobatidae , while the arboreal Boophis species are the Madagascan equivalent of tree frogs and glass frogs . The pseudoxyrhophiine snakes of Madagascar have evolved into fossorial, arboreal, terrestrial, and semi-aquatic forms that converge with

5760-447: The ground finches that serve the dual purpose of allowing them to feed on Opuntia cactus nectar and pollen while these plants are flowering, but on seeds during the rest of the year. The warbler-finches ( Certhidea sp.) have short, pointed beaks for eating insects. The woodpecker finch ( Camarhynchus pallidus ) has a slender beak which it uses to pick at wood in search of insects; it also uses small sticks to reach insect prey inside

5850-423: The group. Douglas E. Soltis and others identify thirteen synapomorphies (shared characteristics that unite monophyletic groups of taxa); Monocots have a distinctive arrangement of vascular tissue known as an atactostele in which the vascular tissue is scattered rather than arranged in concentric rings. Collenchyma is absent in monocot stems, roots and leaves. Many monocots are herbaceous and do not have

5940-464: The leaf veins emerging at the leaf base and then running together at the apices. There is usually only one leaf per node because the leaf base encompasses more than half the circumference. The evolution of this monocot characteristic has been attributed to developmental differences in early zonal differentiation rather than meristem activity (leaf base theory). The lack of cambium in the primary root limits its ability to grow sufficiently to maintain

6030-419: The monocots to consist of four alliances , Epigynae, Coronariae, Nudiflorae and Glumales, based on floral characteristics. He describes the attempts to subdivide the group since the days of Lindley as largely unsuccessful. Like most subsequent classification systems it failed to distinguish between two major orders, Liliales and Asparagales , now recognised as quite separate. A major advance in this respect

6120-406: The most robust medium ground finches could have beaks larger than those of the smallest large ground finches. Because of this overlap, it can be difficult to tell the species apart by eye, though their songs differ. These three species often occur sympatrically , and during the rainy season in the Galapagos when food is plentiful, they specialize little and eat the same, easily accessible foods. It

6210-411: The name implies, a single (mono-) cotyledon , or embryonic leaf, in their seeds . Historically, this feature was used to contrast the monocots with the dicotyledons or dicots which typically have two cotyledons; however, modern research has shown that the dicots are not a natural group, and the term can only be used to indicate all angiosperms that are not monocots and is used in that respect here. From

6300-400: The one hand that the monocots remained as a well defined monophyletic group or clade , in contrast to the other historical divisions of the flowering plants, which had to be substantially reorganized. No longer could the angiosperms be simply divided into monocotyledons and dicotyledons; it was apparent that the monocotyledons were but one of a relatively large number of defined groups within

6390-520: The one hand, the organization of the shoots, leaf structure, and floral configuration are more uniform than in the remaining angiosperms, yet within these constraints a wealth of diversity exists, indicating a high degree of evolutionary success. Monocot diversity includes perennial geophytes such as ornamental flowers including orchids ( Asparagales ); tulips and lilies ( Liliales ); rosette and succulent epiphytes (Asparagales); mycoheterotrophs (Liliales, Dioscoreales , Pandanales ), all in

6480-540: The other five ecomorphs across the Caribbean's four largest islands. Much like in the case of the cichlids of the three largest African Great Lakes, each of these islands is home to its own convergent Anolis adaptive radiation event. Presented above are the most well-documented examples of modern adaptive radiation, but other examples are known. Populations of three-spined sticklebacks have repeatedly diverged and evolved into distinct ecotypes. On Madagascar , birds of

6570-506: The piscivorous Nimbochromis livingtonii , which lies on its side in the substrate until small cichlids, perhaps drawn to its broken white patterning, come to inspect the predator - at which point they are swiftly eaten. Lake Victoria's cichlids are also a species flock, once composed of some 500 or more species. The deliberate introduction of the Nile Perch ( Lates niloticus ) in the 1950s proved disastrous for Victoria cichlids, and

6660-511: The plant. This necessitates early development of roots derived from the shoot (adventitious roots). In addition to roots, monocots develop runners and rhizomes , which are creeping shoots. Runners serve vegetative propagation , have elongated internodes , run on or just below the surface of the soil and in most case bear scale leaves . Rhizomes frequently have an additional storage function and rhizome producing plants are considered geophytes (Tillich, Figure 11). Other geophytes develop bulbs ,

6750-535: The plants rely either on chemical attraction or other structures such as coloured bracts fulfill the role of optical attraction. In some phaneranthous plants such structures may reinforce floral structures. The production of fragrances for olfactory signalling are common in monocots. The perigone also functions as a landing platform for pollinating insects. The embryo consists of a single cotyledon, usually with two vascular bundles . The traditionally listed differences between monocots and dicots are as follows. This

6840-482: The same structures had introduced the term cotyledon, which Ray adopted in his subsequent writing. Mense quoque Maii, alias seminales plantulas Fabarum, & Phaseolorum, ablatis pariter binis seminalibus foliis, seu cotyledonibus, incubandas posui In the month of May, also, I incubated two seed plants, Faba and Phaseolus , after removing the two seed leaves, or cotyledons Marcello Malpighi (1679), p. 18 In this experiment, Malpighi also showed that

6930-425: The seed leaves... In the first kind the seed leaves are nothing but the two lobes of the seed having their plain sides clapt together like the two halves of a walnut and therefore are of the just figure of the seed slit in sunder flat wise... Of seeds that spring out of the earth with leaves like the succeeding and no seed leaves I have observed two sorts. 1. Such as are congenerous to the first kind precedent that

7020-400: The seeds derives a general distinction amongst plants, that in my judgement is first and by far the best, into those seed plants which are bifoliate, or bilobed, and those that are analogous to the adult), that is between monocots and dicots. He illustrated this by quoting from Malpighi and including reproductions of Malpighi's drawings of cotyledons (see figure). Initially Ray did not develop

7110-429: The sides of other fish, scales being its main source of food. Gnathochromis permaxillaris possesses a large mouth with a protruding upper lip, and feeds by opening this mouth downward onto the sandy lake bottom, sucking in small invertebrates. A number of Tanganyika's cichlids are shell-brooders, meaning that mating pairs lay and fertilize their eggs inside of empty shells on the lake bottom. Lamprologus callipterus

7200-445: The soil, these are geophilous shoots (Tillich, Figure 11) that help overcome the limited trunk stability of large woody monocots. In nearly all cases the perigone consists of two alternating trimerous whorls of tepals , being homochlamydeous , without differentiation between calyx and corolla . In zoophilous (pollinated by animals) taxa, both whorls are corolline (petal-like). Anthesis (the period of flower opening)

7290-403: The specific issue regarding Liliales and Asparagales, Dahlgren followed Huber (1969) in adopting a splitter approach, in contrast to the longstanding tendency to view Liliaceae as a very broad sensu lato family . Following Dahlgren's untimely death in 1987, his work was continued by his widow, Gertrud Dahlgren , who published a revised version of the classification in 1989. In this scheme

7380-556: The surviving species endangered. Anole lizards are distributed broadly in the New World, from the Southeastern US to South America. With over 400 species currently recognized, often placed in a single genus ( Anolis ), they constitute one of the largest radiation events among all lizards. Anole radiation on the mainland has largely been a process of speciation, and is not adaptive to any great degree, but anoles on each of

7470-490: The term was used shortly after his classification appeared (1753) by Scopoli and who is credited for its introduction. Every taxonomist since then, starting with De Jussieu and De Candolle , has used Ray's distinction as a major classification characteristic. In De Jussieu's system (1789), he followed Ray, arranging his Monocotyledones into three classes based on stamen position and placing them between Acotyledones and Dicotyledones. De Candolle's system (1813) which

7560-458: The true grasses ( Poaceae ), which are economically the most important family of monocotyledons. Often mistaken for grasses, sedges are also monocots. In agriculture the majority of the biomass produced comes from monocotyledons. These include not only major grains ( rice , wheat , maize , etc.), but also forage grasses, sugar cane , the bamboos , and many other common food and decorative crops. The monocots or monocotyledons have, as

7650-453: The wood, making it one of the few animals that use tools . The mechanism by which the finches initially diversified is still an area of active research. One proposition is that the finches were able to have a non-adaptive, allopatric speciation event on separate islands in the archipelago, such that when they reconverged on some islands, they were able to maintain reproductive isolation . Once they occurred in sympatry, niche specialization

7740-416: Was descended from Tanganyikan ancestors. The common ancestor of Malawi's species flock is believed to have reached the lake 3.4 million years ago at the earliest, making Malawi cichlids' diversification into their present numbers particularly rapid. Malawi's cichlids span a similarly range of feeding behaviors to those of Tanganyika, but also show signs of a much more recent origin. For example, all members of

7830-637: Was favored so that the different species competed less directly for resources. This second, sympatric event was adaptive radiation. The haplochromine cichlid fishes in the Great Lakes of the East African Rift (particularly in Lake Tanganyika , Lake Malawi , and Lake Victoria ) form the most speciose modern example of adaptive radiation. These lakes are believed to be home to about 2,000 different species of cichlid, spanning

7920-475: Was not well-understood why their beaks were so adapted until Peter and Rosemary Grant studied their feeding behavior in the long dry season, and discovered that when food is scarce, the ground finches use their specialized beaks to eat the seeds that they are best suited to eat and thus avoid starvation. The other finches in the Galapagos are similarly uniquely adapted for their particular niche. The cactus finches ( Geospiza sp.) have somewhat longer beaks than

8010-559: Was the work of Rolf Dahlgren (1980), which would form the basis of the Angiosperm Phylogeny Group 's (APG) subsequent modern classification of monocot families. Dahlgren who used the alternate name Lilliidae considered the monocots as a subclass of angiosperms characterised by a single cotyledon and the presence of triangular protein bodies in the sieve tube plastids . He divided the monocots into seven superorders , Alismatiflorae, Ariflorae, Triuridiflorae, Liliiflorae , Zingiberiflorae, Commeliniflorae and Areciflorae. With respect to

8100-468: Was to predominate thinking through much of the 19th century used a similar general arrangement, with two subgroups of his Monocotylédonés (Monocotyledoneae). Lindley (1830) followed De Candolle in using the terms Monocotyledon and Endogenae interchangeably. They considered the monocotyledons to be a group of vascular plants ( Vasculares ) whose vascular bundles were thought to arise from within ( Endogènes or endogenous ). Monocotyledons remained in

#603396