Plant size: a key determinant of diversification?

Abstract

Explaining the variation in diversification rate across groups of plants has long been an important goal of botanists. In plants, complex scenarios involving a combination of extrinsic opportunities and intrinsic traits have been used to explain rapid diversification in certain groups. However, we feel that a very simple trait has been neglected from theories of plant diversification, namely plant height. Here, we argue that decreasing plant size should generally lead to an increase in speciation rate and a decrease in extinction rate. Theory suggests that all population genetic processes involved in speciation are influenced by plant size and its correlates, including seed dispersal distance, population size, generation time and the spatial scale at which plants perceive environmental heterogeneity. In addition, several of these variables, notably population size, also influence rates of extinction. We support our arguments with an empirical analysis showing that plant height is indeed negatively correlated with net diversification rate across families of angiosperms. Finally, we outline how the finer aspects of our hypothesis could be tested, at both micro- and macroevolutionary scales. In addition to strengthening our understanding of the effect of plant size on evolutionary processes, such a research agenda should contribute novel insights to speciation theory in general.