Flower size affects bee species visitation pattern on flowers with poricidal anthers across pollination studies

Lima, Tamiris Daiane Delgado de; Leal, Laura C.; Ottra, Juliana Hanna Leite El; Brito, Vinícius Lourenço Garcia de; Nogueira, Anselmo

doi:10.1016/j.flora.2022.152198

Cited by 15 publications

(14 citation statements)

References 77 publications

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“…Pollinator specialization, which tends to enhance pollination success and drives angiosperm evolution (Armbruster 2014(Armbruster , 2016Brosi 2016;Villalobos et al 2019), also often increases with decreasing poricidal flower size (Delgado et al 2023. Although how behavior and environment interact to drive poricidal flower evolution has not been studied to our knowledge, such interactions are known in other pollinations mutualisms.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Buzz-world: Global patterns and drivers of buzzing bees and poricidal plants

Russell,

Buchmann,

Ascher

et al. 2024

Preprint

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SUMMARYForaging behavior frequently plays a major role in driving the geographic distribution of animals. Buzzing to extract protein-rich pollen from flowers is a key foraging behavior used by bee species across at least 83 genera (these genera comprise ∼58% of all bee species). Although buzzing is widely recognized to affect the ecology and evolution of bees and flowering plants (e.g., buzz-pollinated flowers), global patterns and drivers of buzzing bee biogeography remain unexplored. Here, we investigate the global species distribution patterns within each bee family and how patterns and drivers differ with respect to buzzing bee species. We found that both distributional patterns and drivers of richness typically differed for buzzing species compared to hotspots for all bee species and when grouped by family. A major predictor of the distribution, but not species richness overall for buzzing members of four of the five major bee families included in analyses (Andrenidae, Halictidae, Colletidae and to a lesser extent, Apidae) was the richness of poricidal flowering plant species, which depend on buzzing bees for pollination. As poricidal plant richness was highest in areas with low wind and high aridity, we discuss how global hotspots of buzzing bee biodiversity are likely driven by both biogeographic factors and plant host availability. Whilst we explored global patterns with State-level data, higher resolution work is needed to explore local level drivers of patterns, but from a global perspective, buzz-pollinated plants clearly play a greater role in the ecology and evolution of buzzing bees than previously predicted.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Buzz-world: Global patterns and drivers of buzzing bees and poricidal plants

Russell,

Buchmann,

Ascher

et al. 2024

Preprint

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“…Our results suggest that, all else being equal, a larger bee should be able to remove more pollen per time spent buzzing than a smaller bee. This does not mean that smaller bees are at a disadvantage in terms of total pollen removal, as the behaviour of the bee on the flower will affect how these vibrations are applied to the flower and the amount of pollen removed, and small bees might adjust how they manipulate and interact with flowers to maximise pollen removal (Barbosa et al, 2023; Delgado et al, 2023).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Biomechanical properties of defence vibrations produced by bees

Vallejo-Marin,

Field,

Fornoni

et al. 2024

Preprint

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Bees use thoracic vibrations produced by their indirect flight muscles for powering wingbeats in flight, but also during mating, pollination, defence, and nest building. Previous work on non-flight vibrations has mostly focused on acoustic (airborne vibrations) and spectral properties (frequency domain). However, mechanical properties such as the vibration's acceleration amplitude are important in some behaviours, e.g., during buzz pollination, where higher amplitude vibrations remove more pollen from flowers. Bee vibrations have been studied in only a handful of species and we know very little about how they vary among species. Here, we conduct the largest survey to date of the biomechanical properties of non-flight bee buzzes. We focus on defence buzzes as they can be induced experimentally and provide a common currency to compare among taxa. We analysed 15,000 buzzes produced by 306 individuals in 65 species and six families from Mexico, Scotland, and Australia. We found a strong association between body size and the acceleration amplitude of bee buzzes. Comparison of genera that buzz-pollinate and those that do not suggests that buzz-pollinating bees produce vibrations with higher acceleration amplitude. We found no relationship between bee size and the fundamental frequency of defence buzzes. Although our results suggest that body size is a major determinant of the amplitude of non-flight vibrations, we also observed considerable variation in vibration properties among bees of equivalent size and even within individuals. Both morphology and behaviour thus affect the biomechanical properties of non-flight buzzes.

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“…Since pollen often is scattered relatively broadly across the bee's abdomen in large, buzz‐pollinated flowers, stigma contact with different parts of the bee's abdomen may be advantageous in that it allows picking up mixed pollen loads from a larger diversity of different (conspecific) pollen donors (Minnaar et al, 2019). Further, the larger spatial separation between stamen appendages, pores, and stigma should provide opportunity for specialization on bees of different sizes (Delgado et al, 2022). Only bees that are large enough to surpass the critical, flower‐specific appendage–stigma distance threshold can act as efficient pollinators (Mesquita‐Neto et al, 2021).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The buzzing behavior of the bees visiting these flowers is highly variable, ranging from buzzing one stamen at a time to all stamens at once, and is determined by their size (i.e., whether bees are large enough to grasp all stamens at once, Mesquita‐Neto et al, 2018). Ultimately, selection on traits mediating fit with different‐sized bee pollinators may be a major driver of floral diversification and specialization (Delgado et al, 2022; Oliveira et al, 2022). Although this possibility has not been tested in Melastomataceae, experimental work in other buzz‐pollinated groups ( Solanum , Solanaceae; Chamaecrista , Fabaceae) indeed suggests a strong effect of traits mediating fit between flower and pollinator (i.e., stamen–stigma distance) and bee size on reproductive success (Solís‐Montero and Vallejo‐Marín, 2017; Mesquita‐Neto et al, 2021).…”

Section: Figurementioning

confidence: 99%

Using geometric morphometrics to determine the “fittest” floral shape: A case study in large‐flowered, buzz‐pollinated Meriania hernandoi

Dellinger,

Hanusch,

Oswald

et al. 2023

American J of Botany

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Premise: Floral shape (relative arrangement and position of floral organs) is critical in mediating fit with pollinators and maximizing conspecific pollen transfer particularly in functionally specialized systems. To date, however, few studies have attempted to quantify flowers as the inherently three-dimensional (3D) structures they are and determine the effect of intraspecific shape variation on pollen transfer. We here addressed this research gap using a functionally specialized system, buzz pollination, in which bees extract pollen through vibrations, as a model. Our study species, Meriania hernandoi (Melastomataceae), undergoes a floral shape change from pseudocampanulate corollas with more actinomorphically arranged stamens (first day) to open corollas with a more zygomorphic androecium (second day) over anthesis, providing a natural experiment to test how variation in floral shape affects pollination performance. Methods: In one population of M. hernandoi, we bagged 51 pre-anthetic flowers and exposed half of them to bee pollinators when they were in either stage of their shape transition. We then collected flowers, obtained 3D flower models through x-ray computed tomography for 3D geometric morphometric analyses, and counted the pollen grains remaining per stamen (male pollination performance) and stigmatic pollen loads (female pollination performance). Results: Male pollination performance was significantly higher in open flowers with zygomorphic androecia than in pseudo-campanulate flowers. Female pollination performance did not differ among floral shapes. Conclusions: These results suggest that there is an "optimal" shape for male pollination performance, while the movement of bees around the flower when buzzing the spread-out stamens results in sufficient pollen deposition regardless of floral shape.

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Flower size affects bee species visitation pattern on flowers with poricidal anthers across pollination studies

Cited by 15 publications

References 77 publications

Buzz-world: Global patterns and drivers of buzzing bees and poricidal plants

Buzz-world: Global patterns and drivers of buzzing bees and poricidal plants

Biomechanical properties of defence vibrations produced by bees

Using geometric morphometrics to determine the “fittest” floral shape: A case study in large‐flowered, buzz‐pollinated Meriania hernandoi

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