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Mixing and matching floral traits

1,992 views · Published 19 April 2011 · 5:05 · Indexed 24 September 2026

Channel: Cell Press · 2011 · Science & Technology

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Plants and their pollinators can evolve extremely specific and exclusive relationships with one another, potentially leading to reproductive isolation and speciation. In this video abstract, Klahre and colleagues describe their recent work showing that differences in the ability to produce scent in two closely related petunia species is explained by relatively simple genetic changes. Exploiting this information, the authors mix and match floral traits between the two species through interbreeding, allowing them to test the relative importance of these traits to would-be pollinators. In the case of Petunia axillaris, which produces white, scented flowers, it is demonstrated that the hawkmoth Manduca sexta, a pollinator of this petunia species, places equal weight on color and scent.

Check out the paper at http://www.cell.com/current-biology/fulltext/S0960-9822(11)00363-0.

And read more great research at http://www.cell.com/current-biology/home.

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