Successful pollination of the Neotropical crop Solanum quitoense by Bombus terrestris: behaviour, efficiency and yield

Abstract

The South American lulo (Solanum quitoense Lam.) is a crop plant of the Andes of Ecuador and Colombia, pollinated by South American bumblebees, such as, Bombus atratus Franklin. The cultivation of lulo outside of its native range, for example in European glasshouses, requires the presence of efficient pollinators to enable high fruit set and yield. Until now, the suitability of Bombus terrestris L., native to Europe and commonly used in agriculture, has been untested for this purpose. In this study, the pollencollecting behaviour of B. terrestris when visiting lulo flowers was investigated. It was shown that B. terrestris adopted the lulo as a pollen source, and on average visited three flowers per minute, had five buzzing events per stay and foraged for 15 s on a single flower, independently of the previous number of visits and level of bruising to the anthers. The pollination efficiency of five different treatments was evaluated: (i) exclusion of bees, (ii) single and (iii) multiple visits of B. terrestris, (iv) self-and (v) cross-pollination by hand. The results clearly demonstrated that, for fruit set, pollination is crucial. It was also found that lulo flowers can be successfully self-pollinated, but give 25% fewer fruit set compared with pollination via multiple bumblebee visits, or cross-pollination by hand. Fruit set, seed set and fruit size were as high with pollination by B. terrestris as with crosspollination by hand, indicating that this bumblebee is an appropriate pollinator for lulo. However, B. terrestris was conspicuously less effective when a flower was visited only once. Therefore, when growing lulos commercially, multiple bumblebee visits should be encouraged, but it is likely that the behaviour of B. terrestris would ensure this anyway. Our results indicate that B. terrestris is a suitable and efficient pollinator for the production of lulo fruits.

Improvement of almond production usingBombus terrestris(Hymenoptera: Apidae) in Mediterranean conditions

“…The different production of bb1 and c1 during years could be explained by two hypotheses. were studied by Kwon and Saeed, (2003), Ahmad et al, (2015) and Messinger et al, (2016). In these studies, the increase in fruit set was also higher in the plots where bumble bees were introduced.…”

“…Other studies evaluating the effect of the introduction of commercial bumble bees have been performed in greenhouses. Specifically, the pollination of two Solanum species and hot pepper ( Caspicum annuum ) were studied by Kwon and Saeed, (), Ahmad et al, () and Messinger et al, (). In these studies, the increase in fruit set was also higher in the plots where bumble bees were introduced.…”

“…Bumble bees are able to maintain their body temperature and forage at a lower temperature than, for instance, honey bees (Goulson, ; Heinrich, ). B. terrestris is one of the most important pollinators used in greenhouses (Ahmad et al, ; Kwon & Saeed, ; Messinger, Martini, Rossi, Samuels, & Lauerer, ; Roman & Szczesna, ) due to their hairy body. Bumble bees are more efficient than honey bees for some crops, such as tomatoes, strawberries and peppers (Ahmad et al, ; Kwon & Saeed, ; Trillo et al, ); thus, bumble bees deposit more pollen grains on the stigmas of flowers (Willmer et al, ).…”

Recursos florales usados por dos especies de Bombus en un fragmento de bosque subandino (Pamplonita-Colombia)

“…en las cercanías a los nidos. Algunos estudios en zonas andinas ya han reportado el uso de B. atratus (Almanza 2007) y B. terrestris (MESSINGER et al, 2016) como polinizadores importantes de este cultivo, sin embargo en Pamplonita este recurso no ha sido establecido. Bajo este contexto, se llevaron a cabo comparaciones morfológicas y morfométricas entre los granos hallados en el presente trabajo con descripciones realizadas en granos de polen de S. quitoense (MERCADO-GÓMEZ et al, 2015), hallado grandes similitudes que asocia a los granos de Solanum sp1 a S. quitoense.…”

Biodiversity of Food Species of the Solanaceae Family: A Preliminary Taxonomic Inventory of Subfamily Solanoideae

“…Cultivation has also been attempted in Panama, Guatemala, and Africa [137]. In addition, contemporary research into sustainable Central European glasshouse production of the naranjilla is under way in Germany [138,139]. Some cultivated populations may consist of spiny forms, which may be classified as S. quitoense var.…”