Accessibility, constraint, and repetition in adaptive floral evolution

• Genetic correlations among traits can bias or constrain phenotypic evolution.
• This bias may facilitate repeated evolution when selection aligns with correlations.
• Examples include floral adaptations to self-pollination and to novel pollinators.
• When selection opposes correlations, adaptation may depend on prior gene duplication.

Adaptive phenotypic evolution is shaped by natural selection on multiple organismal traits as well as by genetic correlations among traits. Genetic correlations can arise through pleiotropy and can bias the production of phenotypic variation to certain combinations of traits. This phenomenon is referred to as developmental bias or constraint. Developmental bias may accelerate or constrain phenotypic evolution, depending on whether selection acts parallel or in opposition to genetic correlations among traits. We discuss examples from floral evolution where genetic correlations among floral traits contribute to rapid, coordinated evolution in multiple floral organ phenotypes and suggest future research directions that will explore the relationship between the genetic basis of adaptation and the pre-existing structure of genetic correlations. On the other hand, natural selection may act perpendicular to a strong genetic correlation, for example when two traits are encoded by a subset of the same genes and natural selection favors change in one trait and stability in the second trait. In such cases, adaptation is constrained by the availability of genetic variation that can influence the focal trait with minimal pleiotropic effects. Examples from plant diversification suggest that the origin of certain adaptations depends on the prior evolution of a gene copy with reduced pleiotropic effects, generated through the process of gene duplication followed by subfunctionalization or neofunctionalization. A history of gene duplication in some developmental pathways appears to have allowed particular flowering plant linages to have repeatedly evolved adaptations that might otherwise have been developmentally constrained.