Pollinator experience, neophobia and the evolution of flowering time.

ABSTRACT: Environmental changes, such as current climate warming, can exert directional selection on reproductive phenology. In plants, evolution of earlier flowering requires that the individuals bearing genes for early flowering successfully reproduce; for non-selfing, zoophilous species, this means that early flowering individuals must be visited by pollinators. In a laboratory experiment with artificial flowers, we presented captive bumble-bees (Bombus impatiens) with flower arrays representing stages in the phenological progression of a two-species plant community: Bees that had been foraging on flowers of one colour were confronted with increasing numbers of flowers of a second colour. Early flowering individuals of the second 'species' were significantly under-visited, because bees avoided un

SUBMITTER: Forrest J 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC2664365 | biostudies-literature | 2009 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature