Anole and Orchid Evolution–What Do They Have in Common?

Figure 1 from Pauw (2006)

Anton Pauw of Stellenbosch University in South Africa writes:

“I am reading Lizards in an Evolutionary Tree and find it fascinating to see how many parallels there are with my one of my study systems, oil-secreting orchids. While the anoles have differentiated across a series of niches provided by a plant, the orchids have differentiated across a series of niches provided by an animal. The orchids segregate the body of the shared pollinator among them so that each places its pollen on a unique segment of the oil-collecting bee. Orchid speciation generally involves shifts between bee species (with placement site conserved), but some speciation also occurs through shift in pollen placement site within the bee , so that sister species occupy for example the first and second segment of the front leg respectively.  Anyway, I thought that you too might find these parallels interesting, so I have attached two papers on the topic. I like the comparison of your Fig. 3.2 with Fig. 1 in the attached 2006 paper.”

The other paper is here. Incidentally,  apparently no one has posted a picture of an anole sitting on an orchid on the internet.

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Jonathan Losos

Professor of Biology and Director of the Living Earth Collaborative at Washington University in Saint Louis. I've spent my entire professional career studying anoles and have discovered that the more I learn about anoles, the more I realize I don't know.

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