Attracting Antagonists: Does Floral Nectar Increase Leaf Herbivory?

Adler, Lynn S.; Bronstein, Judith L.

doi:10.1890/03-0409

Cited by 132 publications

(134 citation statements)

References 86 publications

(87 reference statements)

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“…(36,37) and the facultative specialist sunflower moth (Homoeosoma electellum) (38). For M. sexta females, field observations and laboratory experiments suggest that host-plant flowers may play a similar role (39,40). Why, however, do males also have an innate preference for D. wrightii, given that they do not need to locate the host plant, and A. palmeri is energetically a much greater nectar source than D. wrightii?…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Behavioral consequences of innate preferences and olfactory learning in hawkmoth–flower interactions

Riffell

Alarcón

Abrell

et al. 2008

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

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170

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Spatiotemporal variability in floral resources can have ecological and evolutionary consequences for both plants and the pollinators on which they depend. Seldom, however, can patterns of flower abundance and visitation in the field be linked with the behavioral mechanisms that allow floral visitors to persist when a preferred resource is scarce. To explore these mechanisms better, we examined factors controlling floral preference in the hawkmoth Manduca sexta in the semiarid grassland of Arizona. Here, hawkmoths forage primarily on flowers of the bat-adapted agave, Agave palmeri, but shift to the moth-adapted flowers of their larval host plant, Datura wrightii, when these become abundant. Both plants emit similar concentrations of floral odor, but scent composition, nectar, and flower reflectance are distinct between the two species, and A. palmeri flowers provide six times as much chemical energy as flowers of D. wrightii. Behavioral experiments with both naïve and experienced moths revealed that hawkmoths learn to feed from agave flowers through olfactory conditioning but readily switch to D. wrightii flowers, for which they are the primary pollinator, based on an innate odor preference. Behavioral flexibility and the olfactory contrast between flowers permit the hawkmoths to persist within a dynamic environment, while at the same time to function as the major pollinator of one plant species.flower visitation ͉ foraging behavior ͉ moth ͉ pollination A bundance and composition of flower species are fundamental aspects of pollination biology, and both can change over a pollinator's lifetime. For any nectar or pollen forager, the ability to discriminate, learn, and switch among flowers in the face of an ever-changing environment is critically important. For example, availability of floral resources at a landscape scale can constrain the size (1) and behavior (2) of a population of floral visitors (3). Unfortunately, aside from research on social bees (e.g., Apis mellifera, Bombus spp.), our understanding of mechanisms controlling nectar foraging by pollinators is limited. Whereas observational studies of flower visitation (reviewed in ref. 4) and proportionally fewer studies of the effects of changing flower composition on foraging (5) have been conducted (6), the causal mechanisms controlling floral visitation remain unclear and seldom can be demonstrated from the observed correlations. Thus, there remains a fundamental gap between the processes that occur in the field and the underlying behavioral mechanisms mediating those interactions.Nectar foraging by insects involves a suite of behaviors, both innate and learned. Much of our understanding of flower choice and cognition comes from work with generalist honey bees (Apis mellifera) and bumble bees (Bombus spp.), for which learning is a critical component. For instance, honey bee workers exhibit innate color preferences, but when trained on flowers of alternative colors, the preference is extinguished (7). Learning permits individual bees the flexibility to fo...

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Behavioral consequences of innate preferences and olfactory learning in hawkmoth–flower interactions

Riffell

Alarcón

Abrell

et al. 2008

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

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170

159

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“…Thus, the attraction of both pollinators and cucumber beetles is likely to have fitness consequences for native cucurbits and implications for crop yield in managed cucurbit systems. While a growing number of studies have demonstrated that floral display or reward can be costly due to the attraction of antagonists (Brody and Mitchell 1997;Adler and Bronstein 2004;Ashman et al 2004b;Strauss and Irwin 2004), the current study is one of few to address the role of scent in attracting pollinators compared to herbivores. Similar to our study, specific floral volatiles present in C. arvense scent attracted just pollinators, just herbivores, or both pollinators and herbivores (Theis 2006).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Hermaphrodites of Fragaria virginiana experience more herbivory by the bud-clipping weevil Anthonomus signatus compared to female morphs, and this difference is thought to be due to pollen rewards offered by hermaphrodites (Ashman et al 2004a). Greater nectar rewards in Datura stramonium increased oviposition of herbivorous larvae by pollinating hawkmoths (Adler and Bronstein 2004). Therefore, attracting pollinators without also attracting herbivores may be a challenge for flowering plants that require animal pollinators to reproduce.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Pollinator and Herbivore Attraction to Cucurbita Floral Volatiles

2007

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Mutualists and antagonists may place conflicting selection pressures on plant traits. For example, the evolution of floral traits is typically studied in the context of attracting pollinators, but traits may incur fitness costs if they are also attractive to antagonists. Striped cucumber beetles (Acalymma vittatum) feed on cucurbits and are attracted to several volatiles emitted by Cucurbita blossoms. However, the effect of these volatiles on pollinator attraction is unknown. Our goal was to determine whether pollinators were attracted to the same or different floral volatiles as herbivorous cucumber beetles. We tested three volatiles previously found to attract cucumber beetles in a factorial design to determine attraction of squash bees (Peponapis pruinosa), the specialist pollinators of cucurbita species, as well as the specialist herbivore A. vittatum. We found that 1,2,4-trimethoxybenzene was attractive to both the pollinator and the herbivore, indole was attractive only to the herbivore, and (E)-cinnamaldehyde was attractive only to the pollinator. There were no interactions among volatiles on attraction of squash bees or cucumber beetles. Our results suggest that reduced indole emission could benefit plants by reducing herbivore attraction without loss of pollination, and that 1,2,4-trimethoxybenzene might be under conflicting selection pressure from mutualists and antagonists. By examining the attraction of both mutualists and antagonists to Cucurbita floral volatiles, we have demonstrated the potential for some compounds to influence only one type of interaction, while others may affect both interactions and possibly result in tradeoffs. These results shed light on the potential evolution of fragrance in native Cucurbita, and may have consequences for yield in agricultural settings.

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“…Reciprocally, several floral traits involved in pollinator attraction have been shown to attract herbivores as well. This is the case for corolla size and color (Strauss et al 2002), nectar (Adler and Bronstein 2004), and floral scent (Theis 2006). Hence, we could improve our understanding of the dynamics of plant-pollinator communities by taking into account herbivores, and vice versa.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…To do so, we analysed one of the very few highly resolved data sets simultaneously describing pollination and herbivory interactions (Pocock et al 2012a,b). Our hypotheses were that plants that are generalists in the pollination networks are also generalists in the herbivory networks, because animals may respond similarly to plant signals (e.g., Strauss et al 2002, Adler and Bronstein 2004, Theis 2006). In addition, we expected that plants that share the same pollinators might share the same herbivores, since interaction conservatism of plants has been found in both pollination and herbivory networks, meaning that phylogenetically related plants tend to share the same interaction partners (Ives and Godfray 2006, Rezende et al 2007, Elias et al 2013, Rafferty and Ives 2013.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

How plants connect pollination and herbivory networks and their contribution to community stability

Sauve

Thébault

Pocock

et al. 2015

Ecology

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Abstract.Pollination and herbivory networks have mainly been studied separately, highlighting their distinct structural characteristics and the related processes and dynamics. However, most plants interact with both pollinators and herbivores, and there is evidence that both types of interaction affect each other. Here we investigated the way plants connect these mutualistic and antagonistic networks together, and the consequences for community stability. Using an empirical data set, we show that the way plants connect pollination and herbivory networks is not random and promotes community stability. Analyses of the structure of binary and quantitative networks show different results: the plants' generalism with regard to pollinators is positively correlated to their generalism with regard to herbivores when considering binary interactions, but not when considering quantitative interactions. We also show that plants that share the same pollinators do not share the same herbivores. However, the way plants connect pollination and herbivory networks promotes stability for both binary and quantitative networks. Our results highlight the relevance of considering the diversity of interaction types in ecological communities, and stress the need to better quantify the costs and benefits of interactions, as well as to develop new metrics characterizing the way different interaction types are combined within ecological networks.

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Attracting Antagonists: Does Floral Nectar Increase Leaf Herbivory?

Cited by 132 publications

References 86 publications

Behavioral consequences of innate preferences and olfactory learning in hawkmoth–flower interactions

Behavioral consequences of innate preferences and olfactory learning in hawkmoth–flower interactions

Pollinator and Herbivore Attraction to Cucurbita Floral Volatiles

How plants connect pollination and herbivory networks and their contribution to community stability

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