Dispersal syndrome evolution in angiosperms: ancestral zoochory, correlations with pollination mode and biome, and sampling effects

Across >1200 angiosperm species, ancestral seed dispersal is inferred as most likely zoochory with fleshy, indehiscent fruits, shaping later syndrome evolution.

• Why it matters: It is unclear how early angiosperms dispersed seeds, whether dispersal syndromes track shifts in biome and pollination, and how incomplete sampling biases large-scale evolutionary reconstructions.
• What they did: Using phylogenetic comparative analyses on a global angiosperm phylogeny plus dispersal-syndrome traits, the study inferred ancestral states and syndrome–biome–pollination correlations, then tested sampling via taxon removal up to 50%.
• The result: Over macroevolutionary time, transitions among syndromes were frequent, with autochory as an intermediate between zoochory and anemochory; zoochory linked to tropical biomes and biotic pollination, while abiotic dispersal linked to cold/arid biomes and abiotic pollination, and taxon removal caused minimal inference changes.

AI summary of the abstract · may contain errors · not medical advice · read the paper.