Blooming flowers evolved faster than their animal partners

nathaninsandiego

Over time, hummingbird-pollinated flowers evolve to suit the bird's bill shape, its colour vision, and even its taste buds. This is the beauty of co-evolution, where two species interact so closely that they evolve together.

Flowering plant species grew rapidly in numbers and variety about 100m years ago, during the mid-Cretaceous period. From what we understand about co-evolution, such rapid diversification should drive diversification in species that interacted with those plants.

But did it? That is the question David Grossnickle and David Polly of Indiana University ask in a new study published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B. Their answer, based on fossil records of mammals, is "no." But that turned out to be because co-evolution isn’t the only factor affecting species survival.