Evolution of interactions between plants and their pollinators

Abstract

Our theoretical understanding of plant reproductive character evolution often only implicitly includes pollinator behavior and the community ecological context of pollination. Reciprocal reservations apply to studies of pollinator evolution. I recast selection models to incorporate interaction between plants of one species with the pollinators of another, emphasizing primarily the plant perspective. I then include pollination and community processes, such as optimal foraging and interspecific competition for pollinators. This highlights how many models implicitly assume that a plant species exerts a monopoly on its pollinators. Such an assumption is at odds with the observation of widespread generalist interactions. Reconsideration of previous literature surveys and studies of plant-pollinator interaction illustrate this perspective.

Aspidistras, amphipods and Oz: Niche opportunism between strangers in a strange land

“…The success of biological invasion or establishment into new habitats is often considered to be a result of the relaxation of predation in the new habitat, freeing resources for growth and reproduction: the Enemy Release Hypothesis (Keane & Crawley 2002), although the simplicity of this hypothesis has been challenged as not allowing for the complexity of species interactions in a community (Colautti et al . 2004; Joshi & Vrieling 2005), as has the notion of monopolistic pollinator control by plants (Morgan 2000; Ashworth et al . 2004).…”

“…This supports the assertion that such asymmetry is a widespread plant–pollinator interaction (Vázquez & Aizen 2004), with generalist pollinators desirable in order to buffer plant survival in the face of disturbance or other factors that limit specialized pollinators (Waser et al . 1996; Morgan 2000; Ashworth et al . 2004).…”

Abordagens Históricas No Estudo Das Interações Planta-Polinizador

“…A maioria é facultativa e, ao contrário o mutualismo obrigatório é raro. O mutualismo entre plantas e polinizadores se estende desde a relação de um para um até interações extremamente difusas (Morgan 2000).…”

Flowering and pollination ecology of Cleistocactus baumannii (Cactaceae) in the Brazilian Chaco: pollinator dependence and floral larceny

“…Flowering phenology (Freitas et al 2013;VGN Gomes et al 2019), floral morphology and pollination syndromes (Gomes & Araujo 2015), breeding system and pollination (Bianchi et al 2000;Gorostiague & Ortega-Baes 2016;Souza et al 2017) of C. baumannii have all been studied in different locations of the Gran Chaco domain. However, since the Gran Chaco is drier toward the west and more humid toward the east (e.g., Brazilian Chaco) (Lewis 1991) and floral traits and pollinators can vary between populations in different locations and climate scenarios (Schlumpberger et al 2009;Gorostiague et al 2018;Rech et al 2018), is important to investigate new populations in different environments (Morgan 2000). Here, we aim to determine if the reproductive biology of C. baumannii in the Brazilian Chaco differs from that in the Argentinean Chaco.…”