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Do flowers removed of either nectar or pollen attract fewer bumblebee pollinators? An experimental test in Impatiens oxyanthera

Pollen and nectar are the primary rewards offered by flowers to pollinators. In floral visitors of some plant species, pollen thieves and nectar robbers cause the reduction in pollen grain number and nectar volume, respectively. However, it remains unclear whether the absence of either of the two re...

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Autores principales: Li, Deng-fei, Yan, Xian-chun, Lin, Yi, Wang, Li, Wang, Qiong
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Oxford University Press 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8255076/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34234935
http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/aobpla/plab029
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author Li, Deng-fei
Yan, Xian-chun
Lin, Yi
Wang, Li
Wang, Qiong
author_facet Li, Deng-fei
Yan, Xian-chun
Lin, Yi
Wang, Li
Wang, Qiong
author_sort Li, Deng-fei
collection PubMed
description Pollen and nectar are the primary rewards offered by flowers to pollinators. In floral visitors of some plant species, pollen thieves and nectar robbers cause the reduction in pollen grain number and nectar volume, respectively. However, it remains unclear whether the absence of either of the two rewards in a given flower reduces its attraction to nectar- and pollen-collecting pollinators. We hypothesized that flowers removed of either nectar or pollen would attract fewer pollinators. We studied protandrous Impatiens oxyanthera, whose flowers provide bumblebee pollinators with both nectar and pollen in the male phase. We conducted floral reward manipulation experiments to explore how the removal of either nectar or pollen from flowers influences pollinator behaviour by comparing their visitation rates and visit duration. Compared with the control flowers, the flowers removed of pollen attracted significantly more bumblebee pollinators per 30 min, but the flowers removed of nectar or those removed of both pollen and nectar attracted significantly fewer bumblebee pollinators per 30 min. Moreover, the visit duration of bumblebee pollinators to control flowers or flowers removed of pollen was longer than that to flowers removed of nectar or those removed of both pollen and nectar. Our investigations indicated that compared with control flowers, the flowers removed of nectar attracted fewer bumblebee pollinators, supporting our hypothesis. However, our other hypothesis that pollen removal would reduce pollinator visits was not supported by our results. Instead, compared with control flowers, the flowers that contained only nectar attracted more bumblebee pollinators. Nectar seems to be the main reward, and bumblebee pollinators mainly used the absence of pollen as a visual signal to locate I. oxyanthera flowers with a potentially higher amount of nectar.
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spelling pubmed-82550762021-07-06 Do flowers removed of either nectar or pollen attract fewer bumblebee pollinators? An experimental test in Impatiens oxyanthera Li, Deng-fei Yan, Xian-chun Lin, Yi Wang, Li Wang, Qiong AoB Plants Studies Pollen and nectar are the primary rewards offered by flowers to pollinators. In floral visitors of some plant species, pollen thieves and nectar robbers cause the reduction in pollen grain number and nectar volume, respectively. However, it remains unclear whether the absence of either of the two rewards in a given flower reduces its attraction to nectar- and pollen-collecting pollinators. We hypothesized that flowers removed of either nectar or pollen would attract fewer pollinators. We studied protandrous Impatiens oxyanthera, whose flowers provide bumblebee pollinators with both nectar and pollen in the male phase. We conducted floral reward manipulation experiments to explore how the removal of either nectar or pollen from flowers influences pollinator behaviour by comparing their visitation rates and visit duration. Compared with the control flowers, the flowers removed of pollen attracted significantly more bumblebee pollinators per 30 min, but the flowers removed of nectar or those removed of both pollen and nectar attracted significantly fewer bumblebee pollinators per 30 min. Moreover, the visit duration of bumblebee pollinators to control flowers or flowers removed of pollen was longer than that to flowers removed of nectar or those removed of both pollen and nectar. Our investigations indicated that compared with control flowers, the flowers removed of nectar attracted fewer bumblebee pollinators, supporting our hypothesis. However, our other hypothesis that pollen removal would reduce pollinator visits was not supported by our results. Instead, compared with control flowers, the flowers that contained only nectar attracted more bumblebee pollinators. Nectar seems to be the main reward, and bumblebee pollinators mainly used the absence of pollen as a visual signal to locate I. oxyanthera flowers with a potentially higher amount of nectar. Oxford University Press 2021-05-28 /pmc/articles/PMC8255076/ /pubmed/34234935 http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/aobpla/plab029 Text en © The Author(s) 2021. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Annals of Botany Company. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) ), which permits unrestricted reuse, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
spellingShingle Studies
Li, Deng-fei
Yan, Xian-chun
Lin, Yi
Wang, Li
Wang, Qiong
Do flowers removed of either nectar or pollen attract fewer bumblebee pollinators? An experimental test in Impatiens oxyanthera
title Do flowers removed of either nectar or pollen attract fewer bumblebee pollinators? An experimental test in Impatiens oxyanthera
title_full Do flowers removed of either nectar or pollen attract fewer bumblebee pollinators? An experimental test in Impatiens oxyanthera
title_fullStr Do flowers removed of either nectar or pollen attract fewer bumblebee pollinators? An experimental test in Impatiens oxyanthera
title_full_unstemmed Do flowers removed of either nectar or pollen attract fewer bumblebee pollinators? An experimental test in Impatiens oxyanthera
title_short Do flowers removed of either nectar or pollen attract fewer bumblebee pollinators? An experimental test in Impatiens oxyanthera
title_sort do flowers removed of either nectar or pollen attract fewer bumblebee pollinators? an experimental test in impatiens oxyanthera
topic Studies
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8255076/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34234935
http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/aobpla/plab029
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