Tuesday, January 14, 2014

Data Analysis

Both our trees indicate that Rose and Jasmine, our two odorous plants, are older than our lily and alstroemeria (non-odorous), so we can assume that non-odorous plants evolved later from odorous plants. Our data mostly supports our hypothesis although our phylogeny tree could have multiple errors.

Conclusion Analysis

Our phylogeny trees, although not completely matching up, are very similar. Because we didnt know genus of all our plants (rose or alstroemeria) we couldn't be absolute when we were finding protein sequences, so we can't be sure our trees/ data accurately reflect the evolutionary order of our species, but it does seem to appear that odorous and non odorous plants branched off from multiple lineages which follows our hypothesis.

In both trees the non-odorous plants, Lily and Alstroemeria, evolved later from the odorous plants. This possibly suggests that at some point odorous plant lost their fragrance due to an environmental pressure to do so or perhaps lack thereof.

 Our Morphology tree shows Alstroemeria evolving before the Aisan lily, but the protein sequence tree indicates the opposite. We are more inclined to trust the protein sequence more since it displays a hard science rather than an evaluative observation. 

Thursday, January 9, 2014

source articles


Evolution of reproductive strategies in the sexually deceptive orchid Ophrys sphegodes: how does flower-specific variation of odor signals influence reproductive success?

This article examines the reproductive stratagies of orchids in artracting bees to transport pollen. 

The hidden language of flowering plants: floral odors as a key for
understanding angiosperm evolution. 


Wake Up and Smell the Roses: The Ecology and Evolution of Floral Scent

A study of the history of floral odors of plants in relation to their flower appearances


Color filled image of Asian Lilly at 10000x. Color added with Seashore Software. Image taken on an SEM by Grant Lamberton, Jane Stockbridge, and Samantha Wanke

Tuesday, January 7, 2014

Pollen Morphology

Pollen Morphology Table





Common NameScientific NamePollen size (μm)Pollen TypeNumber of AperturesSurface Texture
Asian Lily Lilium asiatica Length 106monocolpate 1clavate structures with reticulate patterns
width 42.6
Rose Rosa sp.length 29.5tricolpate (may be incorrect)3striate
width 14
Jasmine Jasminum sp.length 38.5monocolpate 2Ruguate
Alstroemeria Alstroemeria aurealength 54.6monolete1striate
width 23.6

We organized this phylogeny tree based on the number of morphological similarities between each species. The tree begins with Jasmine who's pollen doesn't share any similarities with the other plants. Next, our rose had 1 similarity, it has the same striated surface texture as Alstoremeria. We put the Asian lily which is a monocolpate and has one aperture, like Alstroemeria next. Lastly we were left with Alstroemeria, which shared three similarities with the other plants.


Protein sequence tree made from UniProt. Accuracy expected to be low on account of many changing factors and multiple inconsistent graphs. Made by Jane Stockbridge