A global test of the pollination syndrome hypothesis

Ollerton, Jeff; Alarcón, Rubén; Waser, Nickolas M.; Price, Mary V.; Watts, Stella; Cranmer, Louise; Hingston, AB; Peter, Craig I.; Rotenberry, John T.

doi:10.1093/aob/mcp031

Cited by 406 publications

(448 citation statements)

References 67 publications

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“…The pollination syndromes were classified according Faegri & Pijl (1979) and Bullock (1994) as: anemophily (wind), cantharophily (beetles), phalenophily (moths), sphingophily (hawkmoths), melittophily (bees), myiophily (flies), ornitophily (birds), psychophily (butterflies), chiropterophily (bats), ambiphily (two pollinators) and generalist. The use of pollination syndromes has been controversial and the subject of much discussion in the literature (Ollerton et al 2009). However, a recent and important survey supports the syndrome concept, indicating that convergent floral evolution is driven by adaptation to the most effective pollinator group (Rosas-Guerrero et al 2014).…”

Section: Data Samplingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Variation in plant-animal interactions along an elevational gradient of moist forest in a semiarid area of Brazil

et al. 2016

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Pollination and dispersal are critical ecological processes that directly affect the reproductive success of plants and are important for understanding the structure of plant communities. We compiled data on pollination and dispersal syndromes of 406 plant species distributed among different elevations in Área de Proteção Ambiental da Serra de Baturité (APASB) in northeastern Brazil. We aim to determine how the dispersal and pollination of the flora in the mountainous rainforest of APASB are affected by climate, relief and growth form. We hypothesized that plant community is comprised of different ecological groups based on biotic and abiotic syndromes. Melittophily was the most common (57%) pollination syndrome followed by non-specialized and ornithophily (7%). We found that 64% of species exhibited zoochory, 19% exhibited anemochory and 17% exhibited autochory. Pollination syndromes differed significantly only between types of growth form. Dispersal syndromes differed between topology, growth form and elevation. Six ecological groups were formed based on the interaction between dispersal-pollination and growth form, with predominantly zoochory in woody and anemochory in non-woody plants. Water availability may be the principal factor responsible for variation among dispersal syndromes. The proportion of ruderal species in the non-woody component explains the differences in syndromes between growth forms.

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Section: Data Samplingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Variation in plant-animal interactions along an elevational gradient of moist forest in a semiarid area of Brazil

et al. 2016

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“…Primack and Silander 1975;Thomson 1991, 1996;Adler and Irwin 2006;Ne'eman et al 2010), rather than just recording visitation frequencies. Achieving this improvement can have a substantial impact on our views of the broader issue of generalisation and specialisation in pollination (Ollerton et al 2009;Willmer 2011;Armbruster 2017). For several years, we have therefore been using measurements of single-visit pollen deposition (SVD) onto previously unvisited stigmas, across four very different habitats, to compare the qualities of flower visitors as effective floral pollinators, with the aim of producing more realistic 'pollination networks' than those previously based on visitation alone.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Insights from measuring pollen deposition: quantifying the pre-eminence of bees as flower visitors and effective pollinators

Willmer

Cunnold

Ballantyne

2017

Arthropod-Plant Interactions

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Using our accumulated datasets from Kenyan savanna, Mediterranean garigue, UK gardens and heathland, involving 76 plants from 30 families, we present detailed data to quantify the superiority of bees as pollinators of most flowering plants when compared with other flower visitors. Bees provided the majority of visits to study species at all sites, and 33 of the 76 plants received more than 90% of their visits from bees. Furthermore, pollen deposition onto stigmas from single-visit events (SVD, a measure of pollination effectiveness) was significantly higher for bees than non-bees at all the four sites where a major proportion of the flora was sampled. Solitary bees, and also bumblebees in temperate habitats, were the best potential pollinators for most plants in this respect, and significantly out-performed honeybees. Only a few plants were well served by bombyliid flies, and fewer again by larger hoverflies, butterflies, or solitary wasps. Bees also achieved better matches of their visit timing to peak pollen availability (measured indirectly as peak SVD), and made much shorter visits to flowers than did non-bees, permitting a substantially greater visit frequency. Additionally, they deposited significantly lower levels of potentially deleterious heterospecific pollen on stigmas in heathland and Mediterranean garigue, though not in the UK garden with densely clustered high-diversity flowering, or in the Kenyan savanna site with particularly dispersed flowering patches and some specialist non-bee flowers. Our data provide a novel and quantified characterisation of the specific advantages of bees as flower visitors, and underline the need to conserve diverse bee communities.

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“…Therefore, to understand the relative importance of pollinator and non-pollinator agents and to elucidate how pollinators influence floral trait evolution, we should focus not on a single plant species but on multiple sympatric species (Itino & Hirao 2016). Furthermore, comparisons of related plant species may facilitate the detection of factors affecting floral trait variation (Whittall & Hodges 2007;Ollerton et al 2009). …”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Pattern of flower size variation along an altitudinal gradient differs between Impatiens textori and Impatiens noli-tangere

Hattori

Nagano

Shinohara

et al. 2016

Journal of Plant Interactions

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Studies of factors influencing spatial variation in flower size offer insights into floral evolution. We investigated altitudinal variations in five flower dimensions of two native Japanese Impatiens species (I. textori and I. noli-tangere) and their interactions with their faunal visitors. These two species have similar floral traits, including flower shape, flowering time, and pollinator species; both species are pollinated mainly by Bombus diversus. In I. textori, all measured flower dimensions were negatively correlated with altitude. In contrast, in I. noli-tangere, no measured flower dimensions correlated with altitude. Thus, the altitudinal pattern of flower size variation differed between these congeneric co-habiting herbaceous plant species. The different patterns suggest that the factors (e.g. altitudinal variations of abiotic factors) that cause variation of flower size differ between these two Impatiens species even though focal species have similar floral traits (e.g. flower shape, flowering time, and pollinator species).ARTICLE HISTORY

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A global test of the pollination syndrome hypothesis

Cited by 406 publications

References 67 publications

Variation in plant-animal interactions along an elevational gradient of moist forest in a semiarid area of Brazil

Variation in plant-animal interactions along an elevational gradient of moist forest in a semiarid area of Brazil

Insights from measuring pollen deposition: quantifying the pre-eminence of bees as flower visitors and effective pollinators

Pattern of flower size variation along an altitudinal gradient differs between Impatiens textori and Impatiens noli-tangere

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