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Inter-Individual Nectar Chemistry Changes of Field Scabious, Knautia arvensis

Nectar is crucial to maintain plant-pollinator mutualism. Nectar quality (nutritional composition) can vary strongly between individuals of the same plant species. The factors driving such inter-individual variation have however not been investigated closer. We investigated nectar quality of field s...

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Autores principales: Venjakob, Christine, Leonhardt, Sara, Klein, Alexandra-Maria
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2020
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7073839/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31979080
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/insects11020075
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author Venjakob, Christine
Leonhardt, Sara
Klein, Alexandra-Maria
author_facet Venjakob, Christine
Leonhardt, Sara
Klein, Alexandra-Maria
author_sort Venjakob, Christine
collection PubMed
description Nectar is crucial to maintain plant-pollinator mutualism. Nectar quality (nutritional composition) can vary strongly between individuals of the same plant species. The factors driving such inter-individual variation have however not been investigated closer. We investigated nectar quality of field scabious, Knautia arvensis in different grassland plant communities varying in species composition and richness to assess whether nectar quality can be affected by the surrounding plant community. We analyzed (with high performance liquid chromatography) the content of carbohydrates, overall amino acids, and essential amino acids. Amino acid and carbohydrate concentrations and proportions varied among plant individuals and with the surrounding plant community but were not related to the surrounding plant species richness. Total and individual carbohydrate concentrations were lowest, while proportions of the essential amino acids, valine, isoleucine, leucine (all phagostimulatory), and lysine were highest in plant species communities of the highest diversity. Our results show that K. arvensis nectar chemistry varies with the composition of the surrounding plant community, which may alter the taste and nutritional value and thus affect the plant’s visitor spectrum and visitation rate. However, the strong inter-individual variation in nectar quality requires additional studies (e.g., in semi-field studies) to disentangle different biotic and abiotic factors contributing to inter-individual nectar chemistry in a plant-community context.
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spelling pubmed-70738392020-03-19 Inter-Individual Nectar Chemistry Changes of Field Scabious, Knautia arvensis Venjakob, Christine Leonhardt, Sara Klein, Alexandra-Maria Insects Article Nectar is crucial to maintain plant-pollinator mutualism. Nectar quality (nutritional composition) can vary strongly between individuals of the same plant species. The factors driving such inter-individual variation have however not been investigated closer. We investigated nectar quality of field scabious, Knautia arvensis in different grassland plant communities varying in species composition and richness to assess whether nectar quality can be affected by the surrounding plant community. We analyzed (with high performance liquid chromatography) the content of carbohydrates, overall amino acids, and essential amino acids. Amino acid and carbohydrate concentrations and proportions varied among plant individuals and with the surrounding plant community but were not related to the surrounding plant species richness. Total and individual carbohydrate concentrations were lowest, while proportions of the essential amino acids, valine, isoleucine, leucine (all phagostimulatory), and lysine were highest in plant species communities of the highest diversity. Our results show that K. arvensis nectar chemistry varies with the composition of the surrounding plant community, which may alter the taste and nutritional value and thus affect the plant’s visitor spectrum and visitation rate. However, the strong inter-individual variation in nectar quality requires additional studies (e.g., in semi-field studies) to disentangle different biotic and abiotic factors contributing to inter-individual nectar chemistry in a plant-community context. MDPI 2020-01-22 /pmc/articles/PMC7073839/ /pubmed/31979080 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/insects11020075 Text en © 2020 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
Venjakob, Christine
Leonhardt, Sara
Klein, Alexandra-Maria
Inter-Individual Nectar Chemistry Changes of Field Scabious, Knautia arvensis
title Inter-Individual Nectar Chemistry Changes of Field Scabious, Knautia arvensis
title_full Inter-Individual Nectar Chemistry Changes of Field Scabious, Knautia arvensis
title_fullStr Inter-Individual Nectar Chemistry Changes of Field Scabious, Knautia arvensis
title_full_unstemmed Inter-Individual Nectar Chemistry Changes of Field Scabious, Knautia arvensis
title_short Inter-Individual Nectar Chemistry Changes of Field Scabious, Knautia arvensis
title_sort inter-individual nectar chemistry changes of field scabious, knautia arvensis
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7073839/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31979080
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/insects11020075
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