Evolutionary trends and diversity of major floral nectary types across Solanaceae.

MAIN CONCLUSION: In a co-evolutionary crosstalk amid plants and their pollinators, nectaries serve as a labile link between the relatively fixed structural domains of divergent flower forms and associated pollination syndromes. Floral nectary plays a crucial role in sexual plant reproduction by enabling interaction between plants and their pollinators. It is known to associate with different floral whorls, and exhibits variations in structure and location in different clades across angiosperms. To infer evolutionary patterns, it is important to map key features associated with the trait at various taxonomic ranks. In the present study, we analysed variability and distribution of floral nectaries in Solanaceae for the first time. Floral nectaries of 23 taxa representing different clades in the family were studied using bright-field and scanning electron microscopy. The study reveals that although floral nectaries share anatomical similarity, they differ in morphology, composition within cells, and locations within a flower across the clades. The analysis suggests that (i) there is a shift from symmetric, lobed type nectary in the early branching sub-families to asymmetric, annular type in the late branching ones, (ii) floral organization has shifted from asymmetry (zygomorphy) to symmetry (actinomorphy) in corolla, and (iii) the lobed nectary correlates with zygomorphic floral forms that are pollinated by birds and long-tongued vectors, while the annular nectary is predominant among species with bee-pollinated actinomorphic flowers.

Ancestral segmental duplication in Solanaceae is responsible for the origin of CRCa-CRCb paralogues in the family.

CRABS CLAW (CRC), a member of YABBY transcription factor family, has been previously reported to be principally involved in carpel development across angiosperms, and nectary development in core eudicots. Most of the studies suggest that CRC exists as a single copy gene, except in the Solanaceae where CRC occurs as paralogous pairs-CRCa-CRCb in Solanum lycopersicum, and CRC1-CRC2 in Petunia hybrida. In spite of their crucial role in carpel and nectary development, there is no information about the evolutionary history of the CRC paralogy in Solanaceae and whether the paralogy extends beyond Solanaceae. We analyzed homologues of CRC across angiosperms including genome sequence of fourteen species of Solanaceae available at Sol Genomics Network database, Phytozome and NCBI, to address the questions. Our phylogenetic reconstruction across angiosperms combined with comparative genomic, microsynteny and genome-fractionation analyses across the Solanaceae genomes revealed that (1) the CRCa-CRCb lineage is represented by a single copy in other flowering plants; (2) putative homologues of CRCa and CRCb are present in all the Solanaceae genomes studied; (3) the CRCa-CRCb paralogy in Solanaceae is associated with a large segmental duplication within Solanaceae (perhaps in its common ancestor), and (4) the duplicated segments have undergone different degrees of retention and loss of genes. Also, the CRC gene lineage expanded in Solanaceae following Solanaceae-α hexaploidy event and that two CRC duplicate copies were subsequently retained during the course of evolution. Besides the first detailed description of CRC evolution in Solanaceae, the study identifies potential candidate genes for future functional investigations.