The floriphilic katydid, Phaneroptera brevis, is a frequent flower visitor of non-native, flowering forbs

Abstract

Distribution of consumers in a patch of vegetation can be predicted by resource availability and explained by the resource-concentration and optimal-foraging hypotheses. These hypotheses have not been explored for flower-visiting Orthoptera because they are deemed less economically or ecologically important. Some flower-visiting orthopterans can provide pollination services, which warrants more attention. We studied a Singaporean, floriphilic katydid, Phaneropterabrevis, to investigate the following questions: 1) how frequently does P.brevis visit flowers compared to other flower visitors and 2) what factors predict the abundance of P.brevis? We collected abundance data for P.brevis and other flower-visiting arthropods and quantified seven environmental parameters, including flower abundance and host-plant species richness. We found that P.brevis frequents flowers significantly more often than some common and expected flower visitors such as hoverflies. In line with the prediction of the resource-concentration hypothesis, the abundance of P.brevis was positively correlated with a higher flower abundance. Owing to the limited information on unexpected wild flower visitors and pollinators, especially from the understudied tropics of Southeast Asia, we propose that P.brevis can be a model organism for future studies to answer fundamental questions on flower visitation.

Nontarget catches of traps with chemical lures may refer to the flower‐visitation, probable pollination, and feeding of bush crickets (Ensifera: Tettigoniidae)

“…orchid (Micheneau et al, 2010 ). The most intensive studies on Orthoptera pollination were carried out in the Indo‐Malayan region during recent years (Tan et al, 2019 ; Tan & Tan, 2017 ) when two main types of flower‐visiting orthopterans were described. One of them is the group of floriphilic species (which prefer flowers as food sources) containing species of the Phaneropterinae subfamily (e.g Phaneroptera brevis Serville).…”