The Paleobiology of Pollination and its Precursors

Abstract

Perhaps the most conspicuous of associations between insects and plants is pollination. Pollinating insects are typically the first and most obvious of interactions between insects and plants when one encounters a montane meadow or a tropical woodland. The complex ecological structure of insect pollinators and their host plants is a central focus within the ever-expanding discipline of plant-insect interactions. The relationships between plants and insects have provided the empirical documentation of many case-studies that have resulted in the formulation of biological principles and construction of theoretical models, such as the role of foraging strategy on optimal plant-resource use, the advantages of specialized versus generalized host preferences as viable feeding strategies, and whether “pollination syndromes” are meaningful descriptions that relate flower type to insect mouthpart structure and behavior (Roubik, 1989; Ollerton, 1996; Waser et al., 1996; Johnson and Steiner, 2000). Much of the recent extensive discussion of plant-insect associations has centered on understanding the origin, maintenance, and evolutionary change in plant/pollinator associations at ecological time scales and increasingly at longer-term macroevolutionary time intervals (Armbruster, 1992; Pellmyr and Leebens-Mack, 1999). Such classical plant-insect association studies—cycads and cycad weevils, figs and fig wasps, and yuccas and yucca moths—were explored at modern time scales and currently are being examined through a long-term geologic component that involves colonization models based on cladogenetic events of plant and insect associates, buttressed by the fossil record (Farrell, 1998; Pellmyr and Leebens-Mack, 1999; A. Herre,pers. comm.). In addition to tracing modern pollination to the earlier Cenozoic and later Mesozoic, there is a resurgence in understanding the evolutionary history of earlier palynivore taxa (spore, prepollen and pollen consumers), which led toward pollination as a mutualism (Scott et al., 1992).

Richness of plant–insect associations in Eocene Patagonia: A legacy for South American biodiversity

“…The first example is a distinctive frass-filled blotch mine in an araucarian or podocarpaceous conifer leaf, very similar to damage inflicted today by the basal ditrysian moths Paraectopa (Gracillariidae) and Chrysorthenches (Plutellidae) on the same respective hosts in New Zealand (44,45). This damage also is similar to feeding by basal chrysomeloid clades on these plant hosts in Australia and South America (19,46,47). Collectively, this and biogeographic evidence suggest a Gondwanan interaction that originated in the Mesozoic Era.…”

Generalist flowers and phytophagous beetles in two tropical canopy trees: resources for multitudes

“…These associations represent specialized relationships that were analogous to those occurring later on angiosperms. Thus, these gymnosperm-based associations constituted the third evolutionary phase of the plant-insect associational fossil record that commenced during the Early Triassic (252 Ma), after the end-Permian extinction, and continued throughout the Mesozoic, albeit at significantly decreased diversity as angiosperms assumed ecological dominance (Labandeira, 2000(Labandeira, , 2006. The mid-Triassic to mid-Cretaceous co-radiations of insects and gymnosperms are contrasted with the fourth phase of the radiation of angiosperms and their insect associates that commenced during the Early Cretaceous (115 Ma), an expansion that has been increasing in dramatic ecological ways to the present.…”

“…Previously, a near exclusive focus on angiosperms has been predominant in the fossil insect literature, characterized by skepticism with regard to evidence for pollination or autecologically coupled types of feeding such as nectarivory, pollinivory or seed prédation during the preangiospermous Mesozoic (Grimaldi & Engel, 2005). This view persists despite considerable evidence for and common recognition of these earlier associations (Crepet, 1974;Gottsberger, 1988;Crowson, 1991;Krassilov & Rasnitsyn, 1999;Labandeira, 2000;Gorelick, 2001;Klavins & al., 2005). For example, some authors (Oberprieler, 2004) have asserted a parallel delay in pollination and related associations of cycads to the angiosperm dominated part of the fossil record, even though extant major lineages of obligately insect-pollinated cycads extend back in time from the Early Cretaceous to Middle Triassic or possibly earlier (Gao & Thomas, 1989;Klavins & al., 2003;Anderson & al., 2007).…”

Advanced morphology and behaviour of extinct earwig-like cockroaches (Blattida: Fuziidae fam. nov.)

“…In the sedimentary record, evidence for distinct behaviour is also common, such as sound apparatus preserved in grasshoppers (Sharov 1968;Martins-Neto 1999), evidence for parasitism (Brauckmann et al 2007), pollination (Krassilov & Rasnitsyn 1982;Rasnitsyn & Krassilov 1996a,b;Labandeira 2000), feeding on plants (see Labandeira 2002) and insects (Durden 1988), and oviposition (Béthoux et al 2004;Labandeira 2006). The presence of male tergal glands which are used for pre-copulation attraction of females in the extant cockroach species is unique, even the glands, indicated as plesiomorphic for living taxa, must have been present in most Mesozoic cockroaches (but also in termites and mantises -see below).…”