Data from: Despite testing two ecological hypotheses, the adaptive significance of personate flowers is still mysterious

Data and scripts that support the findings of "Despite testing two ecological hypotheses, the adaptive significance of personate flowers is still mysterious" Paper Abstract: Floral diversity across plant lineages reflects evolutionary shifts in mating strategy and pollinator specificity. In outcrossing species, floral traits may govern whether plants are visited by a generalized or specialized set of pollinators, while selfing is associated with traits that improve the ability to autonomously reproduce. Penstemon, a genus endemic to North America, exhibits striking floral diversity shaped by pollinator-mediated selection. The genus contains a handful of species that display personate flowers – a peculiar bee-pollinated floral type characterized by an upward bulge in the ventral portion of the corolla tube that obstructs the floral opening. Despite this flower morphology evolving independently across the genus, little is known about the ecological function of personate flowers. To test the pollinator exclusion hypothesis, we observed pollinators in natural populations with open, personate, and tubular flowers. To evaluate the autonomous selfing hypothesis, we compared the mating systems of P. hirsutus (personate) and P. smallii (non-personate). We found no evidence that personate flowers function to filter visits by specific bee size classes, leaving the pollinator exclusion hypothesis tenuous. Our mating system study revealed that P. hirsutus is more adapted to self-fertilization than P. smallii, exhibiting reduced inbreeding depression and increased autonomous selfing success. However, whether differences in self-fertilization are due to flower shape differences is still unclear. Together, these findings attempt to contribute to understanding the evolution of floral diversity in Penstemon and demonstrate that the adaptive significance of personate flowers is still murky.