Phylogenetics, biogeography and conservation of Macaronesian Lotus

The Macaronesian Lotus group comprises about 40 species distributed in all five Macaronesian archipelagos, mainland Africa and Europe. Most of the species are adapted to attract insects as pollinators, except for five species (sect. Rhyncholotus) adapted to attract opportunistic passerines birds. The five putatively bird-pollinated species evolved relatively recently within the last 2 Ma from their insect-pollinated ancestor and are endemic to three islands, La Palma (L. pyranthus and L. eremiticus), La Gomera (L. gomerythus) and Tenerife (L. maculatus and L. berthelotii). In contrast, L. sessilifolius (their closely related species with an insect pollination system) is widely distributed in five out of the seven islands in the Canary Island archipelago.