Pollinators and visitors of the generalized food-deceptive orchid Dactylorhiza majalis in North-Eastern Poland

Autor: Janusz Kupryjanowicz, Jarosław Kotowicz, Agata Kostro-Ambroziak, Beata Ostrowiecka, Paweł Mirski, Izabela Tałałaj, Emilia Brzosko, Edyta Jermakowicz, Łukasz Mielczarek, Andrzej Lasoń, Ada Wróblewska
Rok vydání: 2019
Předmět:
Zdroj: Biologia. 74:1247-1257
ISSN: 1336-9563
0006-3088
Popis: Pollinator foraging behavior plays a key role in breeding and therefore affects the evolution of the orchid reproductive strategy. Food-deceptive orchids usually implement a generalized plant pollination strategy and a relatively diverse group of pollinators visit them. Dactylorhiza majalis is a food-deceptive, early-flowering orchid that relies on insect-mediated pollination. This study’s objectives were to identify D. majalis’ pollinators and flower visitors and their foraging behaviors on D. majalis inflorescences. We also assessed the bending movement time to determine the relationship between bending time and the duration of pollinators’ visits. To assess pollination efficiency, we measured the spur length of D. majalis flowers, which is expected to affect the mechanical fit to pollinators/“potential” pollinators. The arthropod fauna were investigated to examine the availability of “potential” pollinators in populations. We identified Apis mellifera as this orchid’s main pollinator and confirmed that few of the flower visitors belonged to Diptera (12 individuals, 9 taxa), Hymenoptera (3 individuals, 3 taxa), or Coleoptera (2 individuals, 2 taxa) in our dataset, which was collected over a 2-year period and includes 360 h of video. The arthropods were collected by a sweep net in D. majalis populations and there were fewer Hymenoptera (2.9–23.2%) and Coleoptera (4.4–23.8%) visitors but more Diptera (23.3–58.6%) visitors. We found that A. mellifera foraged in different ways on D. majalis inflorescences, thereby resulting in cross-pollination and/or geitonogamy; however, the bending time data supported the hypothesis about promoting cross-pollination while decreasing self-pollination, but these data do not exclude the possibility of geitonogamy.
Databáze: OpenAIRE
Externí odkaz: