The aim of the present book is to provide an overview of land plant reproductive biology evolution as presently understood. We provide up-to-date information on how plants have changed during the last 400 million years with respect to their reproductive biology (pollination modes, seed dispersal, and partly also breeding systems). Which groups of plants have evolved from what was originally spore or pollen dispersal by wind or water to dispersal by insects (entomophily)? To address this, we explore how extinct groups, such as the Bennettitales, may have reproduced. What were the characteristics of the hypothetical survivors of early angiosperms and were those groups pollination generalists or specialists? These questions are an active area of research and debate today. How were early seeds and fruits constructed and how did they function? How were these diaspores dispersed in gymnosperms and angiosperms? Another phenomenon emphasized in this book is pollination by beetles, which occurred and still occurs in the geologically very old group cycads, and a case is made that it occurred in the extinct Bennettitales. Beetles, along with flies, but also thrips, bees, cockroaches, and even moths, are pollinators of basal and non-basal angiosperms, but in several gymnosperms and basal angiosperms, beetles are especially important pollinators such that cantharophilous characters are deeply imprinted in the flowers of many angiosperm taxa.
The book has three main parts. 1) Development of entomophily and seed dispersal in land plants, 2) Pollination and seed dispersal in certain gymnosperms and basal angiosperms, and 3) Importance of beetles in pollination and discussion of other existing forms of pollination, in certain gymnosperms, and in basal and certain advanced angiosperms.
