The ecological pollination syndromes of insect‐pollinated plants in an alpine meadow

Abstract

The insect pollination of an alpine plant community consisting of herbs and shrubs, was observed on Mt. Kisokoma-ga-take, central Honshu, Japan. There were two main groups of pollinators, syrphid flies and bumble bees. Although some shrubs were visited by both types of insects, other shrubs and the herbs were visited by either syrphid flies or bumble bees. Two types of herbs categorized by the difference of flower-visiting insects, the Syrphid-type and the Bombus-type, exhibited some clearly contrasting ecological characteristics such as the flowering behavior of individual plants, spatial distribution of the plant populations and segregation of flowering phenology at the community level. The Syrphid-type herbs were densely distributed throughout wide areas in the tall herb stand, and all the flowers borne by an individual plant bloomed simultaneously. Each species did not markedly segregate its flowering time from that of other species of the same type. The Bombus-type herbs were distributed locally and/or at low density, and the individual flowers borne by an individual plant showed staggered flowering times. Each species had a more strictly segregated flowering time. These ecological characteristics of these two flower types seemed to be related to the behavioral characteristics of their pollinators.

Flower morphology, phenology and visitor patterns in an alpine community on Mt Olympos, Greece

“…These findings also support the concept of 'ecological pollination syndromes', developed after reports of poor support of data to the expectations derived from the classical pollination syndromes. Describing the foraging behaviour of two pollinator taxa (bumblebees and syrphid flies) of alpine plants, Yumoto (1986) argued that there exist 'ecological pollination syndromes', which are associated with plant traits related to the flowering behaviour of individual plants, the spatial distribution of plant populations, and the species flowering phenology. Our results showing that duration of flowering and flower abundance are more important than morphological features in explaining flower visitation provide additional evidence of the value of 'ecological pollination syndromes'.…”

“…Flower and flower-visitor traits of alpine plants are described from several mountains around the world [Chile (Arroyo et al, 1982(Arroyo et al, , 1985, Japan (Yumoto, 1986), Australia (Inouye and Pyke, 1988), Norway (Totland, 1993), Canary Islands (Dupont et al, 2003), USA (McCall and Primack, 1992;Moldenke, 1976;Warren et al, 1988)]. Insect diversity, abundance and activity are often reported to decrease with elevation (Arroyo et al, 1985;Bingham and Orthner, 1998;Medan, 2002), whereas composition of the pollinating fauna to shift from Hymenoptera to Diptera, i.e.…”

Pollination systems in a warm temperate evergreen broad‐leaved forest on Yaku Island

“…Only a few authors who have used special techniques for climbing trees have been able to gain authentic information (Perry and Starret, 1980). I have already demonstrated the existence of some ecological patterns in insect-pollinated plants, such as the flowering behavior of individual plants, the spatial distribution of plant populations and flowering phenology (Yumoto, 1986). The results were obtained in an alpine Accepted May 21, 1987 meadow, which is a climax community consisting mainly of herbs that are far easier to observe than shrubs and trees.…”

“…Although studies on flowering phenology and flower-pollinator interaction at the community level have been carried out in various climatic and vegetation zones, such as the high arctic zone (Hocking, 1968;Keven, 1972), alpine or sub-alpine zone (Pojar, 1974;Arroyo et al, 1982;Yumoto, 1986), cool temperate zone (Heinrich, 1976;Schmeske et al, 1978) and tropical zone (Frankie"et al, 1974;Opler et al, 1980), little information is available about communities in the warm temperate zone. On the other hand, knowledge about the pollination ecology of the canopy trees in undisturbed forests is scanty (Appanah, 1981;Bawa et al, 1985), since access to, and observation of their flowers is difficult.…”

Estimating colony locations of bumble bees with moving average model

“…Various ecological studies have been carried out (e.g. Sakagami 1976; Yumoto 1986; Kato et al 1993; Sota 1993; Tomono & Sota 1997). Most of them were performed at highlands or at cool latitude, and there are few studies on bumble bees living in lowlands.…”