Floral trait variation across individual plants within a population enhances defense capability to nectar robbing.

ABSTRACT: Floral trait variation may help pollinators and nectar robbers identify their target plants and, thus, lead to differential selection pressure for defense capability against floral antagonists. However, the effect of floral trait variation among individuals within a population on multi-dimensional plant-animal interactions has been little explored. We investigated floral trait variation, pollination, and nectar robbing among individual plants in a population of the bumble bee-pollinated plant, Caryopteris divaricata, from which flowers are also robbed by bumble bees with varying intensity across individuals. We measured the variation in corolla tube length, nectar volume and sugar concentration among individual plants, and evaluated whether the variation were recognized by pollinato

SUBMITTER: Tie S 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10311112 | biostudies-literature | 2023 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature