Data from: Floral colours in a world without birds and bees: the plants of Macquarie Island

We studied biotically-pollinated angiosperms on Macquarie Island, a remote site in the Southern Ocean with a predominately or exclusively dipteran pollinator fauna, in an effort to understand how flower colour affects community assembly. We compared a distinctive group of cream-green Macquarie Island flowers to the flora of likely source pools of immigrants and to a continental flora from a high latitude in the northern hemisphere. We used both dipteran and hymenopteran colour models and phylogenetically informed analyses to explore the chromatic component of community assembly. The species with cream-green flowers are very restricted in colour space models of both fly vision and bee vision and represent a distinct group that plays a very minor role in other communities. It is unlikely that such a community could form by random immigration from continental source pools. Our findings suggest that fly pollination has imposed a strong ecological filter on Macquarie Island favouring floral colours that are rare in continental floras. This is one of the strongest demonstrations that plant-pollinator interactions play an important role in plant community assembly. Future work exploring colour choices by dipteran flower visitors would be valuable.本研究以南大洋偏远岛屿麦夸里岛的生物传粉被子植物为研究对象，该岛传粉者类群以双翅目为主，甚至完全由双翅目物种构成，旨在探究花色如何影响植物群落构建过程。 我们将麦夸里岛一类独特的乳绿色花类群，与潜在迁入源区的植物区系以及北半球高纬度大陆植物区系进行比对；同时采用双翅目与膜翅目视觉色彩模型，结合系统发育关联分析，解析群落构建的色彩维度特征。 这类乳绿色花物种在蝇类与蜂类视觉的色彩空间模型中分布范围极为受限，构成了一类独特的类群，在其他植物群落中仅占据极次要的生态位。此类群落几乎不可能通过从大陆源区随机迁入而形成。 本研究结果表明，蝇类传粉作用在麦夸里岛形成了强烈的生态过滤效应，偏好大陆植物区系中较为罕见的花色表型。本研究为"植物-传粉者互作在植物群落构建中发挥重要作用"这一核心论点提供了迄今极具说服力的证据之一。未来可针对双翅目访花者的花色选择偏好开展相关研究，具备重要科学价值。