Two's company, three's a crowd: co-occurring pollinators and parasite species in Breynia oblongifolia (Phyllanthaceae).

ABSTRACT:

Background

Obligate pollination mutualisms (OPMs) are specialized interactions in which female pollinators transport pollen between the male and female flowers of a single plant species and then lay eggs into those same flowers. The pollinator offspring hatch and feed upon some or all of the developing ovules pollinated by their mothers. Strong trait matching between plants and their pollinators in OPMs is expected to result in reciprocal partner specificity i.e., a single pollinator species using a single plant species and vice versa, and strict co-speciation. These issues have been studied extensively in figs and fig wasps, but little in the more recently discovered co-diversification of Epicephala moths and their Phyllanthaceae hosts. OPMs involving Epicephala moths are believed

SUBMITTER: Finch JTD 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6295073 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature