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 through 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.

我们以南大洋偏远岛屿麦夸里岛（Macquarie Island）上的生物传粉被子植物（biotically pollinated angiosperms）为研究对象，该岛屿的传粉者类群主要或仅由双翅目昆虫（dipteran）构成，旨在探明花色对植物群落构建（community assembly）的影响机制。我们将麦夸里岛一类独特的乳绿色花卉，与潜在的外来迁入源库植物区系以及北半球高纬度大陆植物区系开展对比研究。本研究同时采用双翅目和膜翅目（hymenopteran）色彩视觉模型，并结合基于系统发育信息的分析方法，探究群落构建的色彩组分（chromatic component）。结果显示，具有乳绿色花色的物种在双翅目与膜翅目视觉的色彩空间模型中分布范围极为受限，且代表了一类在其他群落中占比极低的独特类群。该岛屿的植物群落不太可能通过从大陆源库的随机迁入形成。本研究结果表明，双翅目传粉作用已对麦夸里岛施加了强烈的生态过滤效应，青睐那些在大陆植物区系中较为罕见的花色表型。这是证明植物-传粉者互作（plant–pollinator interactions）在植物群落构建中发挥关键作用的最有力实证之一。未来可针对双翅目访花者的花色选择偏好开展相关研究，具备重要的科学价值。