Effects of plant and pollinator traits on the maintenance of a food deceptive species within a plant community

Abstract

Model–mimic plant systems are well known. However, the conditions promoting the existence of such systems are still an enigma. We suggest that by focusing on floral similarity between model and mimic, reward levels offered by models, and pollinators’ ability to adjust foraging accordingly, the conditions can be better understood. Using spatially‐explicit modelling, we examined trait combinations that lead to the survival of deceptive species under a large range of mimic strategies, from Batesian mimicry to general food deception. Unlike previous models studying such systems, we examined model–mimic interactions in the presence of a third, dissimilar species, thus generating a more realistic scenario where pollinators may avoid the model–mimic system altogether. Results showed that overall survival and abundance of species in food deceptive systems depend on the relative reward provided by the participating species and the potential alternatives available. Specifically, the success of a mimic in a Batesian mimicry system depends on high levels of reward provided by its model species relative to potential alternatives in the flower community. On the other hand, the success of a mimic in a general food deception system was higher when the reward offered was lower. Our study suggests that the ability of pollinators to utilize their experience as part of decision‐making is highly relevant in promoting mimic survival, thus shedding light on the conditions under which food deception is expected.

Alternative flowers affect model and mimic flower discrimination performance of bumblebees

“…The findings of this study, together with those of previous Batesian floral mimicry studies, suggest the following possible relationships among plant species playing the role of model, mimic or alternative: the model has a beneficial effect on the fitness of the mimic (Ma et al., 2015; Newman et al., 2012), the model and alternative have a detrimental (competitive) effect on each other's fitness (Chittka & Schürkens, 2001), the mimic has a detrimental effect on the model and may have a beneficial effect on the alternative because a peak shift induced by the mimic can alter the competitive superiority/inferiority between the model and alternative (Lynn et al., 2005; this study) and the alternative may have a beneficial effect on the mimic by reducing the discrimination performance of pollinators (this study) while simultaneously having a detrimental effect by inducing a peak shift (Qu et al., 2017).…”

“…Recently, Qu et al. (2017), through mathematical modelling, suggested that the presence of alternative rewarding flowers in a community encourages pollinators to shift away from the model‐mimic system, thus making the maintenance of floral deception systems difficult. In the current study, however, the presence of alternative rewarding flowers only marginally decreased the visits to mimics, given that the proportion of visits to mimics in the total number of visits did not differ significantly between the MoMi and MoMiAl arrays in both experiments (Figure 4A).…”

“…In Batesian floral mimicry, the similarity between the deceptive (mimic) and rewarding (model) flowers (Ma et al., 2015; Newman et al., 2012), and the pollinators’ ability to discriminate between them (de Jager et al., 2016) are also considered to affect the success of deceptive flowers. Some studies have further suggested that the presence of alternative rewarding flowers that are dissimilar to either the deceptive or the model flowers in a community encourages pollinators to shift away from the model–mimic system and may reduce the fitness of both model and mimic flowers (Lynn et al., 2005; Qu et al., 2017). However, in the light of protective mimicry examples, as described above, the presence of alternative flowers may additionally affect the relative advantage of mimic flowers against its model flowers.…”

Bifurcations in a pollination-mutualism system with nectarless flowers

“…The equilibria characterize the long-run growth rates of the species, which represent reproduction successes of the two species and can be defined as their fitness/payoffs in the long-run interactions. For additional relevant works, we refer to [5,10,30,32,34,35,36,38,39,46]. To our knowledge, the co-evolution between nectarless flowers and pollinators has not been modeled by evolutionary games.…”

Temperature-dependent competitive advantages of an allelopathic alga over non-allelopathic alga are altered by pollutants and initial algal abundance levels

“…To compare the effects of each type of initial abundance on the outcome of the algal competition, a local sensitivity analysis was performed. The sensitivity analysis was conducted via a disturbance method through changes in the initial value of a target variable (±20% of the default value), with calculation of the sensitivity (S) as follows 56,57…”