Browsing by Autor "Adam P. Karremans"

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A new species of Lepanthes (Orchidaceae: Pleurothallidinae) from Colombia with a large and protruding column
(Lankester Botanical Garden, 2017) Juan Sebastián Moreno; Sebastián Vieira-Uribe; Adam P. Karremans
A new species of Lepanthes from the Western Cordillera of the Colombian Andes, characterized by similar triangular sepals with a large and protruding column, is described and illustrated. The new species is similar to Lepanthes pelorostele from Ecuador, but can be distinguished from the latter by having orange and ciliate sepals and larger petals and lip.
Exceptional diversification of floral form in a specialized orchid pollination system
(2025) Jasen W. Liu; Diego Bogarín; Oscar A. Pérez‐Escobar; Franco Pupulin; Adam P. Karremans; Zuleika Serracín; Y. L. Xie; Eugenio Restrepo; Santiago R. Ramírez
Abstract Traits that facilitate specialized interactions, such as those in flowers that promote pollination, are often invoked as targets of stabilizing selection across macroevolutionary timescales. However, the diversity of pollination mechanisms across flowering plants begs further investigation into the generality of this pattern. We fit a model of multivariate character evolution on a dataset of 140 orchid species sampled across 65 genera from the diverse neotropical Cymbidieae clade to characterize the role of pollination mode on the pace of flower shape evolution. We find that, contrary to the expectation of pollinator-mediated stabilizing selection causing stasis, orchids pollinated by specialized scent-collecting male euglossine bees (“perfume flowers” sensu (1, 2)) exhibit elevated rates of floral evolution compared to plants utilizing other rewarding or deceptive mechanisms. This pattern is recapitulated across at least 5 independent origins of this pollination system amidst a complex backdrop of background rate evolution. The rapid rates of change we observed in perfume flowers may be facilitated by weak evolutionary coupling between functional regions in their flowers, allowing for independent trajectories of evolution. Our results provide novel insights into the capacity for pollinators to generate selective pressures on flowers at macroevolutionary scales, providing an engine for trait diversification in some of the world’s most floristically rich regions.
The Genus Vanilla (Orchidaceae) in South America—Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru: An Annotated Checklist with a New Species
(Missouri Botanical Garden, 2025) Alexander Damián; Adam P. Karremans; Andrés Alberto Barona-Colmenares; Gabriel A. Iturralde; Álvaro J. Pérez; Wilfrido De la Cruz; Lou Jost; Henry X. Garzón; David Villalba-Vargas; Freddy S. Zenteno-Ruíz
The diversity of Vanilla Mill. in Andean South American countries remains significantly understudied, highlighting the urgent need for a robust taxonomic framework as a foundation for future biogeographic, monographic, phylogenetic, and ecological research. Drawing on extensive herbarium studies and fieldwork conducted by the authors over the past decade, we present a curated checklist of this economically important genus in South America, focused on the Andean countries of Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru. Our review records 31 Vanilla species across the four countries, with Colombia emerging as the most species rich, followed by Peru, Ecuador, and Bolivia. Among this diversity, we identified 25 species of potential interest as crop wild relatives of the globally cultivated V. planifolia Andrews. Moreover, we report several species not previously documented in our study area, including a new species from Ecuador, which we describe here as V. sekut Damián, Garzón & Bentley. As part of our extensive herbarium and literature revision, we also designate six lectotypes, one neotype, and four epitypes. This checklist provides a critical baseline for future monographic and evolutionary studies on Vanilla in South America, offering valuable insights into its biodiversity and potential for agricultural and ecological applications.