Flower Conspicuousness to Bees Across Pollination Systems: A Generalized Test of the Bee-Avoidance Hypothesis.

ABSTRACT: Flower signals of bee- and bird-pollinated plants have converged via pollinator-mediated evolution, driven by the visual system of their respective pollinators. For bird flowers, sensory exclusion of less effective bees is also important and such exclusion is also mediated by floral morphological filters. Likewise, other systems based on pollination by red-sensitive insects are also associated with red flowers displaying lower short-wavelength secondary peaks of reflectance, which decreases detectability to animals that are less sensitive to red, such as bees. These flowers often also present long tubes. Here, we tested a generalization of the bee-avoidance hypothesis in order to assess if it holds only for bird flowers or for other non-bee pollination systems as well. For this, we

SUBMITTER: Coimbra G 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7542005 | biostudies-literature | 2020

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature