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Effects of pollination limitation and seed predation on female reproductive...
For many species of conservation significance, multiple factors limit reproduction. In a new study published in AoB PLANTS, Walsh et al. examined the contribution of plant height, number of flowers,...
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Pollination by sexual deception in Pterostylis
Pollination by sexual deception in Pterostylis Pterostylis is an Australasian terrestrial orchid genus of more than 400 species, most of which use a motile, touch-sensitive labellum to trap dipteran...
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Evolution of Old World Salvia in Africa
Evolution of Old World Salvia in Africa Salvia (Lamiaceae) is the largest genus in the mint family, and phenotypic diversity of the genus in Africa is largely the result of repeated colonizations of...
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Buzz pollination, floral traits and pollen release
Buzz pollination, floral traits and pollen release The mechanism of pollen release by sonication (buzz pollination) remains poorly understood. In a comparative study of eight sympatric buzz-pollinated...
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Botanists uncover the secrets of sexual attraction
An interesting paper has moved into free access in Annals of Botany: Caught in the act: pollination of sexually deceptive trap-flowers by fungus gnats in Pterostylis (Orchidaceae). It sounds like a...
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Ecologists make their own flowers to study moths
Thanks to JSTOR Global Plants for pointing to an interesting paper in Functional Ecology, Shape matters: corolla curvature improves nectar discovery in the hawkmoth Manduca sexta. Hawkmoth, Manduca...
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Sexually deceptive orchids
Plants use a diverse range of visual and olfactory cues to attract animal pollinators, with floral volatiles often particularly critical for securing insect pollination. More than 1700 different...
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Hanging On To Your Date, Avoiding Incest And Not Getting Infected – All In A...
Professor Daphne Goring In the mustard family, which includes the important crop Brassica (rapeseed/canola) and the model plant Arabidopsis, the surfaces of the female stigmatic cells are dry. These...
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Night life on the beach
Selfing and nocturnal pollination in sympatric Silene Evolution of autonomous selfing may be advantageous because it allows for reproductive assurance. Buide et al. analyse sympatric populations of...
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Charles Darwin – pollination scientist
Say the name Charles Darwin and pollination is not the first thing that springs to most people’s minds. But Darwin’s follow-up publication to his 1859 work On the Origin of Species was indeed a book...
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Plant-insect relationships, a double-edged sword
Flowering plants have had an intimate relationship with insects for millions of years. Indeed, this is often cited as an example of co-evolution , particularly with regards to the flowers and their...
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Effect of nectar robbing on a pollinator-dependent plant
Nectar robbing commonly has negative consequences for the reproductive success of plants. Lonicera etruscas superba Because total plant fitness is the result of both female and male functions,...
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Butterflies visit more frequently, but bees are better pollinators: the...
A long-tongued bee visiting a flower of pineland golden trumpet (Angadenia berteroi). Photo credit: Sean Pena. Pollination studies often use visitation frequency of potential pollinators as an...
View ArticleSnails as … pollinators (!?)
Always on the look-out for interesting and/or quirky plant stories, I was really pleased to have chanced upon this delightful item amongst one of the many sources I scour continually on your behalf to...
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Permanently photo-postponed pollination (possibly…)
Sex is all about timing. Especially for flowering plants, which usually flower only for limited periods in response to various environmental cues. This phase, which is an essential preparatory stage to...
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Why does the architectural arrangement of flowers vary among species?
Angiosperms exhibit great variations within the architectural arrangements of their floral displays, which serve reproductive functions. The influence of display size and of individual floral traits on...
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Why be nice, when you can cheat your way to success?
There’s an eye-catching paper in Ecological Monographs recently, “The mating consequences of rewarding vs. deceptive pollination systems: is there a quantity-quality trade-off?” by Hobbhahn et al.. It...
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Foraging responses of bumblebees to rewardless floral patches: Importance of...
Bombus diversus tersatus foraging for aconite flowers (photo credit: Shoko Nakamura). Nectar-foraging pollinators respond flexibly to the reward condition of floral patches. In a new study published in...
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Plasticity of key floral traits influences pollinator attraction
Examining the effects of multiple components of pollen deposition (varying according to quantity, source and timing) and pollen removal on key floral traits in Sabatia angularis, Spigler demonstrates...
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Unveiling the osmophores of Philodendron (Araceae)
Philodendron, a species-rich genus of the arum family (Araceae), is thermogenic and produces strong inflorescence scents for pollinator attraction. However, the precise location of the scent-emitting...
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