An underlying assumption for the size-dependent sex allocation (SDS) hypothesis is that plasticity of bisexual investments in hermaphrodites would be larger in female than male allocation, but it has rarely been critically evaluated. Among five sexual morphs in a sexually polymorphic desert herb Geranium transversale, gynomonoecious individuals were the largest, and males were smallest, while hermaphroditic and andromonoecious plants and females in plant size did not differ significantly. The total numbers of flowers increased with plant size in all five sexual morphs; in gynomonoecious and andromonoecious plants this was due to an increase in number of perfect flowers rather than pistillate or staminate flowers. Flower size increased with plant size in hermaphroditic and gynomonoecious plants (due to an increase in size of perfect but not of unisexual flowers). The sizes of staminate flowers in andromonoecious and male plants, and pistillate flowers in gynomonoecious plants did not increase with plant size, and pistil mass increased but stamen mass decreased with plant size. The coefficient of variation (CV) in pistil and stamen mass among 210 plants in four of the sexual morphs (excluding female plants) indicated that variation in resource allocation among individuals was higher in female than male functions. Both flower number and flower size generally increased with plant size in G. transversale, supporting the SDS hypothesis. The relatively higher plasticity (CV) in female than male allocation has not been reported before, providing a cue for understanding why the female-biased allocation associated with plant size is popular in flowering plants.

Floral color and odor serve as attractants for pollinators. It remains unclear how changes in these traits in color-change species interact with pollinators and impact plants’ reproductive success. Lonicera calcarata flowers change from white (night 1 and day 1) through yellow (night 2) and orange (day 2) to orange-red (night 3 and day 3). Our research showed that floral characters, stigma activity, nectar production and floral spectral reflectance decreased through the flowering phases. Floral odor mainly comprised fatty acids, aldehydes, monoterpenes and alcohols, especially n-hexadecanoic acid, hexadecanal and 3-carene. Floral odor peaks on nights 1 and 3, largely due to presence of fatty acids. The emission of n-hexadecanoic acid was higher on nights 1 and 3 compared to other phases, while hexadecanal emission remained constant throughout the flowering stages. The emission of 3-carene was highest on night 1. L. calcarata was mainly pollinated by the moth Chorodna strixaria, the butterfly Acosmeryx naga and three bumblebees (Bombus melanurus, B. eximius, B. sonani) and they all preferred to visit white (younger) flowers. Moths had a preference for 3-carene and no significant preference for n-hexadecanoic acid and hexadecanal. Seed sets of nocturnal pollination and control treatments were not significantly different. L. calcarata could produce seeds by self-pollination, and cross-pollination significantly increased seed set. Floral color guides pollinators to visit younger flowers with more floral rewards and higher stigma activity. Different chemical compounds in floral odor may not only attract pollinators but also avoid herbivore damage.

The maintenance of species boundaries between widespread and narrow endemic congeneric species in sympatric sites remains a fundamental question in ecology and evolutionary biology. For plants with specialized pollination mechanisms, pre- and post-pollination isolation mechanisms likely play distinct roles in reproductive isolation and species integrity. Parnassia (Celastraceae) is characterized by one-by-one stamen movement and has its distribution center in southwest China, where many widespread and local endemic species coexist. To quantify pre- and post-pollination barriers and their relative roles in maintaining species boundaries, we conducted field experiments with the widespread Parnassia wightiana and the local endemic P. amoena over two separate years in Mt. Jinfo, southwest China. We examined four pre-pollination barriers (ecogeography, blooming phenology, stamen movement, pollinator type) and three post-pollination barriers (fruit set, seed production, seed viability). Our findings indicate that pre-pollination barriers played a more significant role in reproductive isolation than post-pollination barriers. For the widely distributed P. wightiana, ecogeographical isolation was the primary barrier, followed by phenology and pollinator type isolation. In the narrow endemic P. amoena, which exhibits slower stamen movement, this feature contributed significantly to isolation, with phenological isolation being the second most important factor. Among post-pollination barriers, seed viability was the most significant for both species. Our results demonstrate that pre-pollination barriers are the predominant isolation mechanism for these two sympatric Parnassia species, and stamen movement may serve as a novel type of pre-pollination barrier, particularly for the narrow endemic species.

The genus Micromonospora, a globally distributed actinomycete inhabiting diverse ecosystems, is widely recognized for its remarkable biosynthetic capacity and role as a prolific source of bioactive natural products. However, the members of the genus Micromonospora from extreme environment remain largely unstudied. In this study, we isolated 15 Micromonospora spp. strains from samples collected in desert and marine habitats. Based on polyphasic taxonomy approaches eight strains were identified and represent four novel species. Genome mining of the newly isolated strains revealed substantial biosynthetic potential for terpenes (n=70, 22.9% of total biosynthetic gene clusters, BGCs) and polyketides (n=60, 19.6% of total BGCs). Subsequent pan-genomic analysis identified substantial numbers of terpene-related (n=745, 33.8% of total biosynthetic genes, BGs) and polyketide-related (n=728, 33.0%) BGs in the core genome, highlighting their core biosynthetic potential. To further investigate their metabolic capacity, fermentation and metabolomic profiling were conducted to assess the secondary metabolite production capacity of all 15 strains. The results revealed a diverse array of alkaloids (averaging 75.3, 33.4% of total annotated secondary metabolites) and amino acid-derived peptides (averaging 56.3, 25.0% of total). These findings also highlight significant metabolic variations among strains and underscore the pivotal role of fermentation conditions in shaping their metabolic profiles. This study advances the taxonomic and functional understanding of Micromonospora spp. and presents a multi-omics framework combining genome mining and metabolomics to explore the biosynthetic potential of wild-type strains from extreme habitats.

Recent phylogenomic studies have confirmed that Scirtidae is one of the earliest-diverging groups of polyphagan beetles. Cretaceous scirtid fossils and genome-scale data have shown promise in elucidating the evolutionary history of Scirtidae. However, knowledge about the Mesozoic diversity of scirtids remains limited, and a recent phylogenomic study of Australasian Scirtinae failed to consider among-site compositional heterogeneity. In this study, we present a refined phylogeny of Scirtinae using data from ultraconserved elements under the better-fitting site-heterogeneous CAT-GTR+G4 model. A new scirtine fossil, Serracyphon philipsi gen. et sp. nov., is reported from mid-Cretaceous Kachin amber. This fossil is characterized by serrate antennae, uncarinated antennomere 1, absence of subocular carinae, and absence of a buttonhole on subgenal ridges. The placement of Serracyphon is evaluated within our updated phylogenomic framework for scirtine evolution. Additionally, we critically reevaluate the taxonomy of the “Scirtes” fossils previously described from the Eocene of the Isle of Wight.

Species are distributed heterogeneously, and different regions have different numbers of species, producing species richness anomalies. More than 100 angiosperm genera demonstrate disjunct distributions in at least two of these regions: Europe, eastern North America, western North America, and East Asia, and commonly between East Asia and eastern North America. These regions have similar climates but usually exhibit species richness anomalies; however, the underlying causes of species richness anomalies in disjunct intercontinental regions remain poorly understood. In this study, we investigated the drivers of anomalies in ash tree (genus Fraxinus L.) species richness anomalies among disjunct intercontinental regions based on distribution data, macrofossil records, and corresponding evolutionary and environmental variables. Generalized linear regression and pathway model analyses incorporating environmental and evolutionary processes indicated that global cooling has contributed to the low species richness in Europe, whereas evolutionary divergence, shaped the distinct species distribution patterns in East Asia (which was identified as an evolutionary cradle) and North America (which was identified as an evolutionary museum). Environmental heterogenies and evolutionary divergence have resulted in a significant diversity anomaly between these regions. This study emphasizes the important role of evolution in the formation of species richness distribution patterns.

A robust and stable phylogenetic framework is a fundamental goal of evolutionary biology. As the third largest insect order, Lepidoptera (butterflies and moths) are central to terrestrial ecosystems and serve as important models for biologists studying ecology and evolutionary biology. However, for such an insect group, the higher-level phylogenetic relationships among its superfamilies remain poorly resolved. Here, we increased taxon sampling among Lepidoptera (37 superfamilies and 68 families containing 263 taxa), obtaining a series of amino-acid datasets from 69,680 to 400,330 aa in length for phylogenomic reconstructions. Using these datasets, we explored the effect of different taxon sampling with significant increases in gene loci on tree topology using maximum-likelihood (ML) and Bayesian inference (BI) methods. Moreover, we also tested the effectiveness of topology robustness among the three ML-based models. The results demonstrated that taxon sampling is an important determinant in tree robustness of accurate phylogenetic estimation for species-rich groups. Site-wise heterogeneity was identified as a significant source of bias, causing inconsistent phylogenetic positions among ditrysian lineages. The application of the posterior mean site frequency (PMSF) model provided reliable estimates for higher-level phylogenetic relationships of Lepidoptera. Phylogenetic inference presented a comprehensive framework among lepidopteran superfamilies, and newly revealed some sister relationships with strong supports (Papilionoidea is sister to Gelechioidea, Immoidea is sister to Galacticoidea, and Pyraloidea is sister to Hyblaeoidea, respectively). The current study provides essential insights for future phylogenomic investigations in species-rich lineages of Lepidoptera and enhances our understanding on phylogenomics of highly diversified groups.

Coping with increasing global temperatures due to climate change may be especially challenging for trees with long generation times as changes might happen too quickly for successful adaptation. Juniperus przewalskii is an arid tolerant key species of forest ecosystems on the northeastern Qinghai-Tibet Plateau. Target capture sequencing was utilized to survey genetic variation and population structure, and to infer the evolutionary history of this species by analyzing 170 individuals from 23 populations. This approach provided valuable information on how local adaptation influences the genetic background of this species, as well as potential predictions regarding the species' response to global climate change. Our results revealed a new fine-scale genetic structure and high levels of genetic diversity as well as local adaptations despite gene flow. Redundancy analysis showed that climate contributed the most to the genetic variation of J. przewalskii. Analysis of gradient forest and risk of non-adaptedness indicated that, for the variables examined and the majority of locations sampled, it is improbable that J. przewalskii will need significant alterations in allele frequencies to endure the forecasted climate shifts. We also identified the most at-risk populations for preservation and numerous candidate genes that may be valuable for upcoming climate change. The significance of combining genetic and environmental information to forecast the resilience of a key tree species to global warming is underscored in our results, particularly in areas susceptible to climate fluctuations.