“…Intraspecific variation in the calories available to pollinators from nectar-feeding often helps explain pollinator preferences within a crop, and may arise from differences in nectar volume per flower, concentration of nectar sugars, density of flowers or the duration of flowering. Many fruit and vegetable crops with strong dependence on pollinators, including blueberry ( Jabłoński et al, 1984 ), watermelon ( Wolf et al, 1999 ), raspberries and blackberries ( Schmidt et al, 2015 ), and zucchini ( Roldán-Serrano and Guerra-Sanz, 2005 ) show positive associations between bee visits and nectar volume or total sugar per flower (nectar volume × concentration). Pollination benefits to Citrus species and cultivars vary, but nectar volume is correlated with honey bee visitation (and also flower size; Albrigo et al, 2012 ).…”
Section: Effects Of Nectar and Nectar-related Traits On Crop Pollinatmentioning
Floral nectar and other reward facilitate crop pollination, and in so doing, increase the amount and breadth of food available for humans. Though abundance and diversity of pollinators (particularly bees) have declined over the past several decades, a concomitant increase in reliance on pollinators presents a challenge to food production. Development of crop varieties with specific nectar or nectar-related traits to attract and retain pollinating insects is an appealing strategy to help address needs of agriculture and pollinators for several reasons. First, many crops have specific traits which have been identified to enhance crop–pollinator interactions. Also, an improved understanding of mechanisms that govern nectar-related traits suggest simplified phenotyping and breeding are possible. Finally, the use of nectar-related traits to enhance crop pollination should complement other measures promoting pollinators and will not limit options for crop production or require any changes by growers (other than planting varieties that are more attractive or rewarding to pollinators). In this article, we review the rationale for improving crop-pollinator interactions, the effects of specific plant traits on pollinator species, and use cultivated sunflowers as a case study. Recent research in sunflower has (i) associated variation in bee visitation with specific floral traits, (ii) quantified benefits of pollinators to hybrid yields, and (iii) used genetic resources in sunflower and other plants to find markers associated with key floral traits. Forthcoming work to increase pollinator rewards should enable sunflower to act as a model for using nectar-related traits to enhance crop–pollinator interactions.
“…Intraspecific variation in the calories available to pollinators from nectar-feeding often helps explain pollinator preferences within a crop, and may arise from differences in nectar volume per flower, concentration of nectar sugars, density of flowers or the duration of flowering. Many fruit and vegetable crops with strong dependence on pollinators, including blueberry ( Jabłoński et al, 1984 ), watermelon ( Wolf et al, 1999 ), raspberries and blackberries ( Schmidt et al, 2015 ), and zucchini ( Roldán-Serrano and Guerra-Sanz, 2005 ) show positive associations between bee visits and nectar volume or total sugar per flower (nectar volume × concentration). Pollination benefits to Citrus species and cultivars vary, but nectar volume is correlated with honey bee visitation (and also flower size; Albrigo et al, 2012 ).…”
Section: Effects Of Nectar and Nectar-related Traits On Crop Pollinatmentioning
Floral nectar and other reward facilitate crop pollination, and in so doing, increase the amount and breadth of food available for humans. Though abundance and diversity of pollinators (particularly bees) have declined over the past several decades, a concomitant increase in reliance on pollinators presents a challenge to food production. Development of crop varieties with specific nectar or nectar-related traits to attract and retain pollinating insects is an appealing strategy to help address needs of agriculture and pollinators for several reasons. First, many crops have specific traits which have been identified to enhance crop–pollinator interactions. Also, an improved understanding of mechanisms that govern nectar-related traits suggest simplified phenotyping and breeding are possible. Finally, the use of nectar-related traits to enhance crop pollination should complement other measures promoting pollinators and will not limit options for crop production or require any changes by growers (other than planting varieties that are more attractive or rewarding to pollinators). In this article, we review the rationale for improving crop-pollinator interactions, the effects of specific plant traits on pollinator species, and use cultivated sunflowers as a case study. Recent research in sunflower has (i) associated variation in bee visitation with specific floral traits, (ii) quantified benefits of pollinators to hybrid yields, and (iii) used genetic resources in sunflower and other plants to find markers associated with key floral traits. Forthcoming work to increase pollinator rewards should enable sunflower to act as a model for using nectar-related traits to enhance crop–pollinator interactions.
“…The two years data showed the same flow but averages were different, being higher especially during noon and afternoon of 2015 (noon p < 0.0001; afternoon p < 0.0001). Nectar increase during the afternoon hours has been already recorded in other plant species (Schmidt et al, 2015, Nuru et al, 2015, Giovanetti et al, 2015) and bees have been recorded modulating their foraging behaviour to collect this resource after having collected pollen in the morning (Giovanetti and Lasso, 2005, Giovanetti et al, 2015). Fig.…”
Nectar is used as raw material for the production of honey and as significant reward in the relationship between bees and plants during pollination. Therefore, it is important to investigate its abundance, dynamics and associated governing factors. Weather conditions are known to influence nectar production, and predicted climate changes may be responsible for future declining in total yield from beekeeping activities. We investigated nectar production as total soluble solids (TSS) of well-known species for honey production, in a hot-arid environment of Saudi Arabia. Data on nectar samples from bagged flowers of different stages during two blooming seasons, 2013 and 2015 were collected on weekly bases, and the data were correlated with weather conditions (temperature, relative humidity, and wind). A significant difference in TSS amount has been obtained, with 1-day old flowers displaying the higher content. TSS production was varied along the different day intervals, for both years, with a peak of production in the afternoon. In our results, nectar production was not correlated to temperature and wind, but was significantly negatively correlated with relative humidity. According to the current and future weather forecasting conditions, understanding of the relationship between weather conditions and nectar availability turned out to be important predictive information that may be interpreted into an economic projection of incomes from beekeeping activities.
“…e reproductive success of entomophilous plants species depends on insect activity which is influenced by nectar availability (Denisow et al, 2016(Denisow et al, , 2018Heil, 2011;Liu et al, 2015;Zhao et al, 2014). Studies on nectar production may thus be useful to estimate a plant's attractiveness to pollinators (Masierowska & Piętka, 2014;Nagy-Déri et al, 2013;Schmidt et al, 2015), which in turn affects yield and quality of fruit and seeds (Bożek, 2012;Quinet et al, 2016), even in self-fertile taxa (de O. Milfont et al, 2013;Denisow, 2002).…”
The attractiveness of plants to pollinators depends strongly on flower rewards, especially nectar and pollen. Nectar mass, sugar concentration, and sugar mass are known to influence the spectrum and abundance of insect visitors. Respective data on nectar secretion in highbush blueberry (
Vaccinium corymbosum
) under the climatic conditions of Poland are scarce. This study was conducted in 2002–2005 to assess flower abundance, nectar production, and insect visitors in six varieties of
V. corymbosum
in Niemce, SE Poland. Flower abundance ranged from 1.63 ± 0.64 (‘Darrow’) to 4.07 ± 0.95 in thousands of flowers per shrub (‘Northland’). Nectar mass, sugar concentration, and nectar sugar mass increased with flower age, peaking between the sixth and ninth day. Significant differences in nectar characteristics occurred between years and between varieties. ‘Bluecrop’ and ‘Darrow’ produced the largest nectar mass (19.08 ± 7.09 and 16.60 ± 8.31 mg nectar per flower, respectively) and nectar sugar mass per flower (6.39 ± 1.52 and 5.76 ± 1.51 mg sugar per flower, respectively). The estimated sugar yield in the studied
V. corymbosum
varieties ranged from 9.4 ± 3.3 to 20.7 ± 3.8 g sugar per shrub (‘Croatan’ and ‘Bluecrop,’ respectively). Regarding insect visitors, only honey bees and bumble bees were observed. Honey bees comprised 81%–98% of the total number of observed insect visitors. Highbush blueberry, due to abundant blooming and high per-flower sugar yield, is thus a good source of nectar sugars for honey bees.
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