Molecular phylogeny of the genus Arum (Araceae) inferred from multi–locus sequence data and AFLPs
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Abstract For centuries the wonderful looking, but foul smelling, Arum lilies have fascinated botanists. The floral odour of many species is believed to mimic faeces—the oviposition substrate of their pollinators, mainly coprophilous flies and beetles. But not all of the 29 Arum species produce a bad floral smell. The genus has evolved a variety of pollination mechanisms, including sweet and wine–like odours, and maybe even pheromone mimicry. In order to study the evolution of the pollination syndromes in Arum , a detailed and reliable phylogeny is a crucial basis. Here we present the first detailed molecular phylogeny of the genus Arum . By combining three chloroplast and one nuclear loci, as well as AFLPs, a highly resolved tree with good statistical support was obtained. The phylogeny is in most parts in congruence with the traditional classification of the genus. By comparing the phylogeny with the data on the pollination biology of the genus we could show that the mimicry of faeces is the oldest and most basal pollination mechanism, but is also present in the youngest and most derived species. The phylogeny presented here will help to study the evolution of deceptive pollination mechanisms in Arum .Keywords:
Araceae
Molecular Phylogenetics
A century of pollination studies of Australian orchids is reviewed. Descriptions of pollination events and conclusions about pollination status are inadequate in many reports. In this review criteria for establishing 'confirmed', 'probable' and 'suggested' pollinator status are defined and recommended. When applied to 153 published pollination reports there are 24 terrestrial species with 'confirmed' pollinators and a further 47 species with 'probable' pollinators. The major syndromes confirmed are wasp pollination by pseudocopulation (15 species) and the bee pollination syndrome of food mimicry (5 species). Nectar and pollen reward systems operate in a small number of species. Eleven epiphytic species have 'confirmed' pollinators, and four have 'probable' pollinators. Thirteen of the fourteen confirmed reports of epiphyte pollination describe social or solitary bees, mainly of the genus Trigona, apparently attracted by floral display and intense fragrance, which may constitute a chemical reward system. Dendrobium is the main epiphytic genus with confirmed pollinators.
Orchidaceae
Zoophily
Epiphyte
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We observed the behavior of pollination in the north slope of Changbai mountain during the florescence from 2004 to 2005.After the preliminary appraisal,38 species of pollinators were caught on 22 kinds of nectar source plants,diptera and hymenoptera were the main pollinators.After observation analysis,Apis mellifera Linnaeus and Bombus ussurensis Radoszkowski were determined to be the most effective and stable pollinators,with an extremely high pollination frequency and obvious date rhythm.In addition,temperature drops,cloudy days,and rains and so on all caused the reduction of frequency of pollination.
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Zoophily
Pollen source
Bumblebee
Geraniaceae
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Abstract The arrangement of plant species within a landscape influences pollination via changes in pollinator movement trajectories and plant–pollinator encounter rates. Yet the combined effects of landscape composition and pollinator traits (especially specialisation) on pollination success remain hard to quantify empirically. We used an individual‐based model to explore how landscape and pollinator specialisation (degree) interact to influence pollination. We modelled variation in the landscape by generating gradients of plant species intermixing—from no mixing to complete intermixing. Furthermore, we varied the level of pollinator specialisation by simulating plant–pollinator (six to eight species) networks of different connectance. We then compared the impacts of these drivers on three proxies for pollination: visitation rate, number of consecutive visits to the focal plant species and expected number of plants pollinated. We found that the spatial arrangements of plants and pollinator degree interact to determine pollination success, and that the influence of these drivers on pollination depends on how pollination is estimated. For most pollinators, visitation rate increases in more plant mixed landscapes. Compared to the two more functional measures of pollination, visitation rate overestimates pollination service. This is particularly severe in landscapes with high plant intermixing and for generalist pollinators. Interestingly, visitation rate is less influenced by pollinator traits (pollinator degree and body size) than are the two functional metrics, likely because ‘visitation rate’ ignores the order in which pollinators visit plants. However, the visitation sequence order is crucial for the expected number of plants pollinated, since only prior visits to conspecific individuals can contribute to pollination. We show here that this order strongly depends on the spatial arrangements of plants, on pollinator traits and on the interaction between them. Taken together, our findings suggest that visitation rate, the most commonly used proxy for pollination in network studies, should be complemented with more functional metrics which reflect the frequency with which individual pollinators revisit the same plant species. Our findings also suggest that measures of landscape structure such as plant intermixing and density—in combination with pollinators' level of specialism—can improve estimates of the probability of pollination. Read the free Plain Language Summary for this article on the Journal blog.
Zoophily
Alpine plant
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The idea that a syndrome of floral traits predicts pollination by a particular functional group of pollinators remains simultaneously controversial and widely used because it allows plants to be rapidly assigned to pollinators. To test the idea requires demonstrating that there is an association between floral traits and pollinator type. I conducted such a test in the Cape Floristic Region of South Africa, by studying the pollination of eight plant species from six families that flower in spring and have scentless, actinomorphic, upwards-facing flowers, with orbicular petals all held in the same plane. The petals are brilliant-white with red-purple nectar guides. The tubes are short and hold small volumes of concentrated nectar, except in the rewardless Disa fasciata (Orchidaceae). Pollinators were photographed and captured, pollen loads were analysed and pollination networks were constructed. Consistent with the pollination syndrome hypothesis, the species with the defined syndrome shared a small group of pollinators. The most frequent pollinators belonged to a clade of four tangle-veined fly species with relatively short proboscises (Nemestrinidae: Prosoeca s.s.), while functionally similar Bombyliidae and Tabanidae played minor roles. Among the four Prosoeca species, only Prosoeca westermanni has been described, a result that highlights our ignorance about pollinators. The demonstration of an association between the syndrome of traits and pollination by this group of flies explains the repeated evolution of the syndrome across multiple plant families, and allows prediction of pollinators in additional species. More generally, the result validates the idea that the traits of organisms determine their ecology.
Petal
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Summary The concept of pollinator niche complementarity maintains that species‐rich pollinator communities can provide higher and more stable pollination services than species‐poor communities, due to contrasting spatial and/or temporal pollination activity among groups of pollinators. Complementarity has usually been examined in pollinators’ patterns of flower visitation or abundance, while largely neglecting the possibility of complementarity in patterns of single‐visit contribution to fruit/seed set (pollination efficiency). However, variability in pollination efficiency can greatly affect pollinators’ overall pollination services and may therefore contribute an additional, important aspect of complementarity. In this study, we investigated the existence of pollinator complementarity in both visitation rates and pollination efficiencies. The study was conducted in 43 watermelon fields cultivated for seed consumption in a Mediterranean agro‐natural landscape in central Israel. We studied spatiotemporal variation in pollinators’ visitation activity, measured by repeated observations and netting, and single‐visit pollination efficiency, measured by the fruit and seed set rates of hermaphrodite flowers exposed to a single bee visit. Visitation and pollination efficiency were measured throughout the day and season, within and between fields with contrasting availability of nearby wild plants, and among flowers of different sizes. Pollinator species’ visitation rates as well as single‐visit fruit set efficiencies, but not seed set efficiencies, exhibited significant spatiotemporal variation that contributed to their complementarity. Pollinators’ visit frequencies were affected by surrounding land use, location within field, time throughout the season, and time of day. Pollinators’ fruit set efficiencies were affected by ovary size and time of day. Synthesis and applications . Crop pollinators may exhibit complementarity in both their visitation rates and pollination efficiencies, which can promote the overall level and stability of their pollination services. Complementarity in pollination efficiencies suggests further diversity effects on crop yield, and calls for taking into account the variability in pollination efficiency along spatiotemporal scales rather than considering it a constant, species‐specific trait. However, some modes of niche complementarity may not necessarily translate into increased pollination services and crop yield; the relevance and limitations of such mechanisms should be considered in the light of the specific crop and management system studied.
Complementarity (molecular biology)
Netting
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The pollination strategy choice for alfalfa depends on two main factors: pollinator density in agro-ecosystems; and their faunal formation in the field. The natural occurrence of pollinators was estimated in southern Russia and sound to be of sufficient quantity to archieve complete alfalfa pollination. For solitary wild bee pollinator species was shown to establish highly mobile nomadic populations in agro-ecosystems.
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Flowering plant
Convergent evolution
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Floral deception has been observed in several genera in angiosperms, but is most common in the Orchidaceae. Pollination mechanisms in food deceptive plants are often difficult to assess, as visitation frequency by insects requires numerous hours of field observations to ascertain. Here, for the first time, we describe in detail and validate a simple and effective method that extends previous approaches to increase the effectiveness of pollination studies of food deceptive orchids. We used an orchid of southwest Australia, Diuris brumalis (Orchidaceae), that visually mimics model plants belonging to the genus Daviesia (Faboideae). Arrays of orchid flowers were placed and moved systematically in proximity to model plants, resulting in rapid attraction of the pollinators of D. brumalis. We compared pollinaria removal (as an indicator of pollination success) in naturally growing orchids with pollinaria removal in arrays of orchid flowers in the same sites. We showed that the proposed method greatly enhances pollinator attractiveness in food deceptive systems with very low pollination rates, and we compared its efficiency with other similar methods. The approach can be used for observing pollinator behavioural patterns and confirming effective pollinators for food deceptive species with low insect visitation rates.
Orchidaceae
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