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Diversity and development of domatia: Symbiotic plant structures to host mutualistic ants or mites (2024)
Journal Article
Chomicki, G., Walker–Hale, N., Etchells, J. P., Ritter, E. J., & Weber, M. G. (2024). Diversity and development of domatia: Symbiotic plant structures to host mutualistic ants or mites. Current Opinion in Plant Biology, 82, Article 102647. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pbi.2024.102647

Across the tree of life, specialized structures that offer nesting sites to ants or mites – known as domatia – have evolved independently hundreds of times, facilitating ecologically important defence and/or nutritional mutualisms. Domatia show remar... Read More about Diversity and development of domatia: Symbiotic plant structures to host mutualistic ants or mites.

The origin and speciation of orchids (2024)
Journal Article
Pérez‐Escobar, O. A., Bogarín, D., Przelomska, N. A. S., Ackerman, J. D., Balbuena, J. A., Bellot, S., …Antonelli, A. (2024). The origin and speciation of orchids. New Phytologist, 242(2), 700-716. https://doi.org/10.1111/nph.19580

Summary
Orchids constitute one of the most spectacular radiations of flowering plants. However, their origin, spread across the globe, and hotspots of speciation remain uncertain due to the lack of an up-to-date phylogeographic analysis.
We present... Read More about The origin and speciation of orchids.

Mutualisms drive plant trait evolution beyond interaction‐related traits (2024)
Journal Article
Burin, G., Campbell, L. C. E., Renner, S. S., Kiers, E. T., & Chomicki, G. (2024). Mutualisms drive plant trait evolution beyond interaction‐related traits. Ecology Letters, 27(2), Article e14379. https://doi.org/10.1111/ele.14379

Mutualisms have driven the evolution of extraordinary structures and behavioural traits, but their impact on traits beyond those directly involved in the interaction remains unclear. We addressed this gap using a highly evolutionarily replicated syst... Read More about Mutualisms drive plant trait evolution beyond interaction‐related traits.

Convergence in carnivorous pitcher plants reveals a mechanism for composite trait evolution. (2024)
Journal Article
Chomicki, G., Burin, G., Busta, L., Gozdzik, J., Jetter, R., Mortimer, B., & Bauer, U. (2024). Convergence in carnivorous pitcher plants reveals a mechanism for composite trait evolution. Science, 383(6678), 108-113. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.ade0529

Composite traits involve multiple components that, only when combined, gain a new synergistic function. Thus, how they evolve remains a puzzle. We combined field experiments, microscopy, chemical analyses, and laser Doppler vibrometry with comparativ... Read More about Convergence in carnivorous pitcher plants reveals a mechanism for composite trait evolution..

Aristolochia mimics stink bugs to repel vertebrate herbivores via TRPA1 activation. (2023)
Journal Article
Yu, Y., Ge, J., Dong, W., Chomicki, G., Yang, S., Geng, Y., & Chen, G. (2024). Aristolochia mimics stink bugs to repel vertebrate herbivores via TRPA1 activation. New Phytologist, 242(1), 278-288. https://doi.org/10.1111/nph.19407

Mimicry is the phenomenon in which one species (the mimic) closely resembles another (the model), enhancing its own fitness by deceiving a third party into interacting with it as if it were the model. In plants, mimicry is used primarily to gain fitn... Read More about Aristolochia mimics stink bugs to repel vertebrate herbivores via TRPA1 activation..

The evolution of plant cultivation by ants (2022)
Journal Article
Campbell, L., Kiers, E., & Chomicki, G. (2023). The evolution of plant cultivation by ants. Trends in Plant Science, 28(3), 271-282. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tplants.2022.09.005

Outside humans, true agriculture was previously thought to be restricted to social insects farming fungus. However, obligate farming of plants by ants was recently discovered in Fiji, prompting a re-examination of plant cultivation by ants. Here, we... Read More about The evolution of plant cultivation by ants.

Molecular Clocks and Archeogenomics of a Late Period Egyptian Date Palm Leaf Reveal Introgression from Wild Relatives and Add Timestamps on the Domestication (2021)
Journal Article
Pérez-Escobar, O., Bellot, S., Przelomska, N., Flowers, J., Nesbitt, M., Ryan, P., …Baker, W. (2021). Molecular Clocks and Archeogenomics of a Late Period Egyptian Date Palm Leaf Reveal Introgression from Wild Relatives and Add Timestamps on the Domestication. Molecular Biology and Evolution, 38(10), 4475-4492. https://doi.org/10.1093/molbev/msab188

Three-dimensional X-ray-computed tomography of 3300- to 6000-year-old Citrullus seeds from Libya and Egypt compared to extant seeds throws doubts on species assignments (2021)
Journal Article
Wolcott, K., Chomicki, G., Staedler, Y., Wasylikowa, K., Nesbitt, M., Schönenberger, J., & Renner, S. (2021). Three-dimensional X-ray-computed tomography of 3300- to 6000-year-old Citrullus seeds from Libya and Egypt compared to extant seeds throws doubts on species assignments. https://doi.org/10.1002/ppp3.10220

Genome-wide macroevolutionary signatures of key innovations in butterflies colonizing new host plants (2021)
Journal Article
Allio, R., Nabholz, B., Wanke, S., Chomicki, G., Pérez-Escobar, O. A., Cotton, A. M., …Condamine, F. L. (2021). Genome-wide macroevolutionary signatures of key innovations in butterflies colonizing new host plants. Nature Communications, 12, Article 354. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-020-20507-3

The mega-diversity of herbivorous insects is attributed to their co-evolutionary associations with plants. Despite abundant studies on insect-plant interactions, we do not know whether host-plant shifts have impacted both genomic adaptation and speci... Read More about Genome-wide macroevolutionary signatures of key innovations in butterflies colonizing new host plants.