Pollination ecology of Acacia gerrardii Benth. (Fabaceae: Mimosoideae) under extremely hot-dry conditions.

ABSTRACT: Talh trees (Acacia gerrardii Benth.) are acacias that are native to the arid and semiarid Africa and west Asia. We investigated the flowering biology, pod set and flower visitors of Talh and discussed the role of these visitors in pollen transfer. The Talh trees blossomed laterally on the nodes of one-year-old twigs. Each node produced 21 flower buds seasonally. Each flower bud opened to a flower head (FH) of 60 florets. The bagged FHs podded significantly (p ⩽ 0.05) less than did the unbagged FHs. The FHs were visited by 31 insect species (25 genera, 16 families and 5 orders). The major taxa were honeybees, megachilids, butterflies, ants, beetles and thrips. Each of honeybees, megachilids and beetles showed a significant (p ⩽ 0.05) hourly pattern, while each of butter

SUBMITTER: Alqarni AS 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6169435 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature