Data from: Geophytism in monocots leads to higher rates of diversification

● Geophytes, plants with buds on underground structures, are found
throughout the plant tree of life. These below ground structures allow
plants to inhabit highly seasonal and disturbance-prone environments
across ecosystems. Past researchers have hypothesized the bulbous, cormous
and tuberous habits promote diversification, but this had yet to be
tested. ● Using a comprehensive monocot data set of almost 13,000 taxa, we
investigated the effects of the geophytic habit on diversification using
both state-dependent and state-independent models. ● We found that
geophytes exhibit increased rates of diversification relative to
non-geophytes. State-dependent analyses recovered higher yet similar rates
of diversification for bulbous, cormous and tuberous taxa compared to
rhizomatous and non-geophytic taxa. However, the state-independent model
returned no difference in rates among the different traits. ● Geophytism
shows higher rates of diversification relative to non-geophytes but we
find little support for the hypothesis that the evolution of the bulb,
corm or tuber appears to provide a diversification increase relative to
rhizomatous and non-geophytic taxa. Our broad scale analysis highlights
the overall evolutionary importance of the geophytic habit (i.e.,
belowground bud placement). However, our results also suggest that
belowground morphological diversity alone cannot explain this rate
increase. In order to further test the evolutionary significance of these
underground structures, future studies should consider them in combination
with other biotic and abiotic factors.