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Pollinator experience, neophobia and the evolution of flowering time.

ABSTRACT: Environmental changes, such as current climate warming, can exert directional selection on reproductive phenology. In plants, evolution of earlier flowering requires that the individuals bearing genes for early flowering successfully reproduce; for non-selfing, zoophilous species, this means that early flowering individuals must be visited by pollinators. In a laboratory experiment with artificial flowers, we presented captive bumble-bees (Bombus impatiens) with flower arrays representing stages in the phenological progression of a two-species plant community: Bees that had been foraging on flowers of one colour were confronted with increasing numbers of flowers of a second colour. Early flowering individuals of the second 'species' were significantly under-visited, because bees avoided unfamiliar flowers, particularly when these were rare. We incorporated these aspects of bee foraging behaviour (neophobia and positive frequency dependence) in a simulation model of flowering-time evolution for a plant population experiencing selection against late flowering. Unlike simple frequency dependence, a lag in pollinator visitation prevented the plant population from responding to selection and led to declines in population size. Pollinator behaviour thus has the potential to constrain evolutionary adjustments of flowering phenology.

SUBMITTER: Forrest J

PROVIDER: S-EPMC2664365 | biostudies-literature | 2009 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Pollinator experience, neophobia and the evolution of flowering time.

Forrest Jessica J Thomson James D JD

Proceedings. Biological sciences 20090301 1658

Environmental changes, such as current climate warming, can exert directional selection on reproductive phenology. In plants, evolution of earlier flowering requires that the individuals bearing genes for early flowering successfully reproduce; for non-selfing, zoophilous species, this means that early flowering individuals must be visited by pollinators. In a laboratory experiment with artificial flowers, we presented captive bumble-bees (Bombus impatiens) with flower arrays representing stages ...[more]

PMID: 19129131

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Project description:Bumblebees (Bombus spp.) rely on an abundant and diverse selection of floral resources to meet their nutritional requirements. In farmed landscapes, mass-flowering crops can provide an important forage resource for bumblebees, with increased visitation from bumblebees into mass-flowering crops having an additional benefit to growers who require pollination services. This study explores the mutualistic relationship between Bombus terrestris L. (buff-tailed bumblebee), a common species in European farmland, and the mass-flowering crop courgette (Cucurbita pepo L.) to see how effective B. terrestris is at pollinating courgette and in return how courgette may affect B. terrestris colony dynamics. By combining empirical data on nectar and pollen availability with model simulations using the novel bumblebee model Bumble-BEEHAVE, we were able to quantify and simulate for the first time, the importance of courgette as a mass-flowering forage resource for bumblebees. Courgette provides vast quantities of nectar to ensure a high visitation rate, which combined with abundant pollen grains, enables B. terrestris to have a high pollination potential. While B. terrestris showed a strong fidelity to courgette flowers for nectar, courgette pollen was not found in any pollen loads from returning foragers. Nonetheless, model simulations showed that early season courgette (nectar) increased the number of hibernating queens, colonies, and adult workers in the modeled landscapes. Synthesis and applications. Courgette has the potential to improve bumblebee population dynamics; however, the lack of evidence of the bees collecting courgette pollen in this study suggests that bees can only benefit from this transient nectar source if alternative floral resources, particularly pollen, are also available to fulfill bees' nutritional requirements in space and time. Therefore, providing additional forage resources could simultaneously improve pollination services and bumblebee populations.

Dataset Information

Pollinator experience, neophobia and the evolution of flowering time.

Publications

Pollinator experience, neophobia and the evolution of flowering time.

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