Ants are effective pollinators of common buckwheat <i>Fagopyrum esculentum</i>

Natsume, Kae; Hayashi, Seigoro; Miyashita, Tadashi

doi:10.1111/afe.12493

Cited by 11 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 47 publications

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“…S5 ). Ants are major pollinators of some wild plants 66 , 67 , but ant pollination of crop plants has not been reported, except for mangoes in the tropics 68 . However, our recent experimental study revealed a significant contribution to buckwheat pollination by ants 69 .…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…However, our recent experimental study revealed a significant contribution to buckwheat pollination by ants 69 . Ants do not move long distances, and pollination may be limited to a small spatial range 68 . However, given that buckwheat is cultivated densely and two types of distylous flowers are close by, pollen transfer by ants is likely to be prevalent.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Diverse flower-visiting responses among pollinators to multiple weather variables in buckwheat pollination

Miyashita

Hayashi

Natsume

et al. 2023

Sci Rep

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Response diversity to environmental change among species is important for the maintenance of ecosystem services, but response diversity to changes in multiple environmental parameters is largely unexplored. Here, we examined how insect visitations to buckwheat flowers differ among species groups in response to changes in multiple weather variables and landscape structures. We found differences in responses to changes in weather conditions among insect taxonomic groups visiting buckwheat flowers. Beetles, butterflies, and wasps were more active in sunny and/or high-temperature conditions, whereas ants and non-syrphid flies showed the opposite pattern. When looking closely, the different response pattern among insect groups was itself shown to be different from one weather variable to another. For instance, large insects were responsive to temperatures more than small insects while smaller insects were responsive to sunshine duration more than large insects. Furthermore, responses to weather conditions differed between large and small insects, which agreed with the expectation that optimal temperature for insect activity depends on body size. Responses to spatial variables also differed; large insects were more abundant in fields with surrounding forests and mosaic habitats, whereas small insects were not. We suggest that response diversity at multiple spatial and temporal niche dimensions should be a focus of future studies of the biodiversity–ecosystem service relationships.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Diverse flower-visiting responses among pollinators to multiple weather variables in buckwheat pollination

Miyashita

Hayashi

Natsume

et al. 2023

Sci Rep

Self Cite

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“…lugubris ), and most individuals were not observed moving between plants. Ants were also excluded from analysis as preliminary observations demonstrated little movement between plants and they are not considered pollinators in some systems (Beattie, 2006; Beattie et al, 1984, but see Natsume et al, 2022, Gras et al, 2016 and Das & Das, 2023). We hereafter refer to Hymenoptera as bees and wasps.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The missing links: Bee and non‐bee alpine visitor observation networks differ to pollen transport networks

Encinas‐Viso,

Goodwin,

Saunders

et al. 2024

Ecological Entomology

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A majority of the world's flowering plants benefit from insect pollination. Bees in particular are known to carry large amounts of pollen, and the pollen load transported is often highly conspecific. However, there is limited knowledge about the transfer of pollen by other non‐bee flower‐visiting insect taxa. We observed and collected insects visiting flowers in an Australian alpine plant community. We identified insect body pollen loads to evaluate the relative differences among taxa using visitation and pollen transport networks. We sampled a diverse pollinator community from 39 insect families that visited 31 plant species (n = 488 individual insects). Pollen abundance and richness on insect bodies varied significantly among Diptera, Hymenoptera and Lepidoptera both among individuals and across insect families. Bees carried more pollen overall than the other three insect orders surveyed, yet dipterans were the most frequent flower visitors overall, with six dipteran families observed visiting flowers more frequently than the most frequent hymenopteran visitor (Apis mellifera L.). Apidae was also the only family in this study to carry consistently large quantities of pollen. At the order level, Diptera carried the second highest quantity of pollen but greater diversity of pollen than other insect orders. Importantly, visitation networks revealed visits to plant taxa that were not identified in pollen transport networks and vice versa. Given the missing links in both visitor observation and pollen transfer networks, we advocate combining both types of networks to provide a more accurate estimate of the full range of plant–pollinator interactions occurring within and across taxa at the community level. Understanding the variation in plant–pollinator interactions as a result of differences among taxa and between networks of flower visitors, pollen transfer is important to evaluate the level of generalisation/specialisation among plants and their pollinator partners.

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Floral richness and seasonality influences bee and non-bee flower interactions in urban community gardens

Schmack

Egerer

2023

Urban Ecosyst

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Pollinating insects are essential for food production. Both bee and non-bee pollinators are undergoing dramatic declines due to land use intensification and its consequences on native ecosystems. While interactions between crops and bee pollinators are well studied, our understanding of the pollination service provided by non-bee flower visitors including flies, ants, beetles and others is still limited. Moreover, the effects of landscape urbanization and changes in floral and nesting resource availability on the network structure of pollinators with both cultivated and wild plants have been poorly studied. We assessed which common bee and non-bee flower visitor groups dominate the interactions with both wild (e.g. Trifolium pratense, Taraxacum officinales) and cultivated plants (e.g. Fragaria ananassa, Cucurbita pepo) in urban community gardens in Berlin and Munich and explored how these interactions between flower visitor groups and plants change over the growing season. We further investigated the effect of changes in urbanization surrounding community gardens, and the availability of floral and nesting resources within gardens on the complexity (i.e. nestedness, linkage density, connectance) of interaction networks. We observed 20 focal plant species and 13 common bee and non-bee flower visitor groups in 30 urban community gardens. We found that dominant plant visitors changed over the growing season, with non-bee flower visitors including ants and flies as dominant early season visitors, and bee pollinators as important visitors later in the season. Nestedness of the flower visitor network increased with increases in floral richness in community gardens, while neither floral abundance nor the impervious surface surrounding the community gardens, garden size or the availability of nesting resources in gardens strongly influenced the flower visitor networks. Our findings suggest that high floral richness in community gardens may ensure the complexity and, thus, the stability of flower visitor networks. Findings further suggest that the role of non-bee flower visitors should be considered for pollination service provision especially in the shoulder seasons. Finally, our results emphasize that urban gardeners play a key role in mediating flower visitor interactions through their gardening practices.

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Ants are effective pollinators of common buckwheat Fagopyrum esculentum

Cited by 11 publications

References 47 publications

Diverse flower-visiting responses among pollinators to multiple weather variables in buckwheat pollination

Diverse flower-visiting responses among pollinators to multiple weather variables in buckwheat pollination

The missing links: Bee and non‐bee alpine visitor observation networks differ to pollen transport networks

Floral richness and seasonality influences bee and non-bee flower interactions in urban community gardens

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