Pollination of a threatened orchid by an introduced hawk moth species in the tallgrass prairie of North America

Fox, K. J.; Vitt, Pati; Anderson, Kirk M.; Fauske, Gerald M.; Travers, Steven E.; Vik, Dean; Harris, M. O.

doi:10.1016/j.biocon.2013.08.026

Cited by 16 publications

(12 citation statements)

References 28 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Learning capabilities are likely to be highly variable among species, and, hence, elevated tropospheric oxidants still pose a potentially serious threat to foraging pollinators. Multiple studies have reported declines in insect abundance and pollinator health in regions across the globe (Potts et al 2010;Kluser and Peduzzi 2007;Fox et al 2013;Hallman et al 2018), and various anthropogenic drivers have been implicated in this decline. Anthropogenically elevated air pollution could be another stressor contributing to overall global insect declines.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Pollination in the Anthropocene: a Moth Can Learn Ozone-Altered Floral Blends

et al. 2020

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Insect pollination is essential to many unmanaged and agricultural systems and as such is a key element in food production. However, floral scents that pollinating insects rely on to locate host plants may be altered by atmospheric oxidants, such as ozone, potentially making these cues less attractive or unrecognizable to foraging insects and decreasing pollinator efficacy. We demonstrate that levels of tropospheric ozone commonly found in many rural areas are sufficient to disrupt the innate attraction of the tobacco hawkmoth Manduca sexta to the odor of one of its preferred flowers, Nicotiana alata. However, we further find that visual navigation together with associative learning can offset this disruption. Foraging moths that initially find an ozone-altered floral scent unattractive can target an artificial flower using visual cues and associate the ozone-altered floral blend with a nectar reward. The ability to learn ozone-altered floral odors may enable pollinators to maintain communication with their co-evolutionary partners and reduce the negative impacts that anthropogenically elevated oxidants may have on plant-pollinator systems.

show abstract

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Pollination in the Anthropocene: a Moth Can Learn Ozone-Altered Floral Blends

et al. 2020

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…However, because our analysis focused on detection probability during collecting events relative to other species, an overall increase in hawk moth collection would not have skewed the results for any one species unless it is substantially more or less likely to be attracted to lights than other species. To our knowledge, only one species in our sample, Lintneria eremitus , has been suggested to avoid light traps [ 10 ]. Moreover, the predominant trend was of decline, which is counter to the expectation of increases if collecting methods were responsible for the trends detected.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Clearly some hawk moths visit rare, native plants. For example, Eumorpha achemon , found to be declining in the study area, visits the threatened orchid Platanthera praeclara in the upper midwestern U.S. [ 10 ]. Whether native northeastern U.S. plants suffer pollen limitation as a result of hawk moth declines is unknown, but possible.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Among vertebrate and invertebrate pollinators, most moths are easy to overlook due to their nocturnal activity. Nevertheless, moth pollinator guilds can be diverse and form the basis of complicated pollen-transfer networks [ 8 ], [ 9 ], [ 10 ]. Some plants, such as the western prairie fringed orchid ( Platanthera praeclara ), yucca ( Yucca and Hesperoyucca ) and senita cacti ( Lophocereus schottii ), depend exclusively on one or a small number of moth species for pollination [ 11 ], [ 12 ] [ 13 ].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Are pollinating hawk moths declining in the Northeastern United States? An analysis of collection records

et al. 2017

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Increasing attention to pollinators and their role in providing ecosystem services has revealed a paucity of studies on long-term population trends of most insect pollinators in many parts of the world. Because targeted monitoring programs are resource intensive and unlikely to be performed on most insect pollinators, we took advantage of existing collection records to examine long-term trends in northeastern United States populations of 26 species of hawk moths (family Sphingidae) that are presumed to be pollinators. We compiled over 6,600 records from nine museum and 14 private collections that spanned a 112-year period, and used logistic generalized linear mixed models (GLMMs) to examine long-term population trends. We controlled for uneven sampling effort by adding a covariate for list length, the number of species recorded during each sampling event. We found that of the 22 species for which there was sufficient data to assess population trends, eight species declined and four species increased in detection probability (the probability of a species being recorded during each year while accounting for effort, climate, and spatial effects in the GLMMs). Of the four species with too few records to statistically assess, two have disappeared from parts of their ranges. None of the four species with diurnal adults showed a trend in detection probability. Two species that are pests of solanaceous crops declined, consistent with a seven-fold drop in the area planted in tobacco and tomato crops. We found some evidence linking susceptibility to parasitoidism by the introduced fly Compsilura concinnata (Tachinidae) to declines. Moths with larvae that feed on vines and trees, where available evidence indicates that the fly is most likely to attack, had a greater propensity to decline than species that use herbs and shrubs as larval host plants. Species that develop in the spring, before Compsilura populations have increased, did not decline. However, restricting the analysis to hawk moth records from areas outside of a “refuge” area where Compsilura does not occur did not significantly increase the intensity of the declines as would be predicted if Compsilura was the primary cause of declines. Forests have recovered over the study period across most of the northeastern U.S., but this does not appear to have been a major factor because host plants of several of the declining species have increased in abundance with forest expansion and maturation. Climate variables used in the GLMMs were not consistently related to moth detection probability. Hawk moth declines may have ecological effects on both the plants pollinated by these species and vertebrate predators of the moths.

show abstract

“…No moths were observed visiting cultivated plants, but observations of flower-visiting moths are infrequent generally. [15][16][17][18][19] The moth-pollination syndrome (phalaenophily), as summarized by Rosas-Guerrero et al, [20] includes the following features: anthesis nocturnal, color white, odor sweet and moderate to strong intensity, flower bell-, brush-or tube-shaped, symmetry radial, size mediumto-very large (corolla length 15 mm or more in length), orientation upright, horizontal or pendant, nectar guides absent, sexual organs enclosed, and nectar reward present. The flowers of S. arborescens meet all of these criteria, with the exception of odor intensity (weak in S. arborescens), corolla symmetry (zygomorphic), corolla length (small) and sexual organs enclosed (strongly exserted).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Nocturnal flowering and pollination of a rare Caribbean sage, Salvia arborescens (Lamiaceae)

Reith

Zona

2016

Neotropical Biodiversity

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The phenology, floral biology and pollination ecology of Salvia arborescens Urb. & Ekman (Lamiaceae) are reported, based on field and garden observations. The flowers of S. arborescens are white, fragrant and rich in nectar. Anthesis begins in the late afternoon, and flowers wilt by late morning of the following day. Floral features fit the moth pollination syndrome. S. arborescens flowers are visited by a variety of nocturnal moths in the wild, including Celiptera levinum (Lepidoptera: Noctuoidea: Erebidae), which was observed carrying pollen of this Salvia. This is the first report of a nightblooming, moth-pollinated Salvia. Hummingbirds, butterflies and beetles may play a role as secondary pollinators.

show abstract

Pollination of a threatened orchid by an introduced hawk moth species in the tallgrass prairie of North America

Cited by 16 publications

References 28 publications

Pollination in the Anthropocene: a Moth Can Learn Ozone-Altered Floral Blends

Pollination in the Anthropocene: a Moth Can Learn Ozone-Altered Floral Blends

Are pollinating hawk moths declining in the Northeastern United States? An analysis of collection records

Nocturnal flowering and pollination of a rare Caribbean sage, Salvia arborescens (Lamiaceae)

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About