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AOBPreview originally published online on November 18, 2005
Annals of Botany 2006 97(1):141-150; doi:10.1093/aob/mcj012
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© The Author 2005. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Annals of Botany Company. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org

Comparison of Pollen Transfer Dynamics by Multiple Floral Visitors: Experiments with Pollen and Fluorescent Dye

LYNN S. ADLER1,2,* and REBECCA E. IRWIN3,4

1 Division of Entomology, Department of Plant, Soil and Insect Science, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, MA 01003, USA, 2 Department of Biology, Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, VA 24061, USA, 3 Department of Biological Sciences, Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH 03755, USA and 4 Institute of Ecology, University of Georgia, Athens, GA 30602, USA

* For correspondence. E-mail lsadler{at}ent.umass.edu

Received: 25 June 2005    Returned for revision: 26 July 2005    Accepted: 7 October 2005    Published electronically: 18 November 2005

• Background and Aims Most plant species are visited by a diversity of floral visitors. Pollen transfer of the four most common pollinating bee species and one nectar-robbing bee of the distylous plant Gelsemium sempervirens were compared.

• Methods Naturally occurring pollen loads carried by the common floral visitor species of G. sempervirens were compared. In addition, dyed pollen donor flowers and sequences of four emasculated recipient flowers in field cages were used to estimate pollen transfer, and the utility of fluorescent dye powder as an analogue for pollen transfer was determined.

• Key Results Xylocopa virginica, Osmia lignaria and Habropoda laboriosa carried the most G. sempervirens pollen on their bodies, followed by Bombus bimaculatus and Apis mellifera. However, B. bimaculatus, O. lignaria and H. laboriosa transferred significantly more pollen than A. mellifera. Nectar-robbing X. virginica transferred the least pollen, even when visiting legitimately. Dye particles were strongly correlated with pollen grains on a stigma, and therefore provide a good analogue for pollen in this system. The ratio of pollen : dye across stigmas was not affected by bee species or interactions between bee species and floral morphology. However, dye transfer was more sensitive than pollen transfer to differences in floral morphology.

• Conclusions The results from this study add to a growing body of literature highlighting that floral visitors vary in pollination effectiveness, and that visitors carrying the most pollen on their bodies may not always be the most efficient at depositing pollen on stigmas. Understanding the magnitude of variability in pollinator quality is one important factor for predicting how different pollinator taxa may influence the evolution of floral traits.

Key words: Apis mellifera, Bombus bimaculatus, fluorescent dye, Gelsemium sempervirens, gene flow, Habropoda laboriosa, heterostyly, honey bee, nectar robber, Osmia lignaria, pollen transfer, Xylocopa virginica


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