Pollination in a new climate: Assessing the potential influence of flower temperature variation on insect pollinator behaviour.

ABSTRACT: Climate change has the potential to enhance or disrupt biological systems, but currently, little is known about how organism plasticity may facilitate adaptation to localised climate variation. The bee-flower relationship is an exemplar signal-receiver system that may provide important insights into the complexity of ecological interactions in situations like this. For example, several studies on bee temperature preferences show that bees prefer to collect warm nectar from flowers at low ambient temperatures, but switch their preferences to cooler flowers at ambient temperatures above about 30° C. We used temperature sensor thermal probes to measure the temperature of outdoor flowers of 30 plant species in the Southern regions of the Australian mainland, to understand how different species

SUBMITTER: Shrestha M 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6070230 | biostudies-literature | 2018

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature