Editorial: Sensory ecology of plant-pollinator interactions

Abstract

What explains the bewildering diversity of flowers in the natural world? This question has fascinated humans for centuries. Pollinator-mediated selection on floral traits is generally assumed to be the main driver of floral phenotypic divergence (Barth, 1991;Dyer et al., 2012;Schiestl and Johnson, 2013). Indeed, flowers could be considered "sensory billboards" (sensu Raguso, 2004), because they advertise their presence to pollinators via an enormous diversity in color, patterns, odor and shape. Pollinators perceive these signals via visual, olfactory and/or tactile mechanisms. How floral traits are produced and how they are perceived by pollinators hence is a central aspect in plant and pollination biology.This Research Topic brings together a suite of papers on the sensory ecology of plant-pollinator interactions Figure 1. The papers can be categorized in the following groups, each of which we will discuss below: (i) inter-and intraspecific variation in floral traits; (ii) perception and learning of floral traits used as signals by pollinators; (iii) use of traits for deception by plants and pollinators, and (iv) variation in floral traits and perception as basis for the evolution of novel interactions. Intra-and interspecific variation in floral traitsThe extraordinary diversity in flower color is a quintessential visualization of plant diversity. Diversity in color is primarily created by different floral pigments, which differ in their absorption spectra and so create different colors. Narbona et al. investigated how three classes of floral pigment determine the visibility of flowers to different pollinators. They found that different pigment classes create colors that occupy separate parts of the visual space, and differences in visual conspicuousness between pigment classes were largely similar among pollinator groups. They also showed that carotenoids and the rarer aurones-chalcones create a higher contrast than the ubiquitous anthocyanins. In addition to the type of pigment, the amount of floral pigment is important for the degree of Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution frontiersin.org van der Kooi et al. . /fevo. .

Trapaças E Enganos: Mimetismo Floral Na Polinização Por Engodo

“…Essa diversidade cognitiva está relacionada à variedade de canais sensoriais utilizados pelos polinizadores para detectar e reconhecer flores e suas recompensas, incluindo a cor, o aroma, a forma e a textura (5) . Nesse contexto, as plantas desenvolveram estratégias para atrair diferentes tipos de polinizadores, adaptando suas sinais para corresponder às preferências desses animais e aumentar suas chances de sucesso reprodutivo (6) .…”