Plant–insect Interactions: a palaeontological and an evolutionary perspective

Bertrand Schatz (1, 2, 3) , Nicolas Sauvion (4) , Finn Kjellberg (1, 2, 3) , André Nel (5, 6, 7, 3)

1 CEFE - Centre d’Ecologie Fonctionnelle et Evolutive
2 UM - Université de Montpellier
3 EPHE - École Pratique des Hautes Études
4 UMR BGPI - Biologie et Génétique des Interactions Plante-Parasite
5 ISYEB - Institut de Systématique, Evolution, Biodiversité
6 MNHN - Muséum national d'Histoire naturelle
7 UPMC - Université Pierre et Marie Curie - Paris 6

Flowers are a remarkable component of everyday life. Their diversity of shape, colour and fragrance witnesses the importance of the joint evolutionary processes resulting from the interactions between plants and their insect pollinators. Indeed, pollination mutualisms with insects are key factors that have allowed the evolutionary success and diversification of flowering plants (McKey & Hossaert-McKey, 2008). This diversification of plants has led to an even more impressive diversification of insects. This chapter retraces the main steps of the past history of diversification of pollination interactions with the emergence of some major pollinator groups of insects and proposes some insights into the selective processes acting on the evolution of the entomophilous pollination.

Mots clés: evolution; diversification; herbivory; mutualism; palaeoentomology; plant–insect interactions; pollination; plant insect interaction

Mots clés: transmission par le pollen; interaction plante insecte

Domaines: Biologie végétale; Microbiologie et Parasitologie

Bertrand Schatz, Nicolas Sauvion, Finn Kjellberg, André Nel. Plant–insect Interactions: a palaeontological and an evolutionary perspective. Insect-plant interactions in a crop protection perspective, 81, Academic Press, 406 p., 2017, Advances in Botanical Research, 978-0-12-803318-0. ⟨10.1016/bs.abr.2016.11.002⟩. ⟨hal-01605194⟩