Experience changes pollinator responses to floral display size: from size-based to reward-based foraging
Experience changes pollinator responses to floral display size: from size-based to reward-based foraging
复制标题
DOI：
10.1111/j.1365-2435.2007.01293.x
复制
发表时间：
2007-10-01
影响因子：
5.2
通讯作者：
Sakai, S.
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Makino, T. T.;Sakai, S.
显示许多开放的花朵的植物通常会获得更高的传粉者访问率，但目前还不清楚传粉者是否选择植物访问基于花卉显示的大小（表观大小）或花卉奖励的价值（奖励大小）。为了研究传粉者如何对表观大小和奖励大小做出反应，我们观察了熊蜂在人工植物阵列中觅食。我们构建了两种人工花：（i）不断产生花蜜的奖励花;（ii）只产生水的非奖励花。因此，我们可以构建出花朵数量（表观大小）和奖励花朵数量（奖励大小）都不同的植物，在实验开始时，蜜蜂会更多地访问花朵最多的植物，而不管它们包含的奖励。然而，经过几个小时的觅食，蜜蜂选择性地返回到具有更多奖励花朵的植物，而不管植物呈现的花朵数量。在我们用非奖励植物取代奖励植物后，蜜蜂继续在以前有利可图的位置访问植物一段时间。我们的研究结果表明，蜜蜂最初对具有较大花朵展示的植物表现出偏好，但最终蜜蜂能够通过将植物的位置与其奖励大小相关联来区分奖励和奖励较小的植物。我们的研究结果表明，植物与许多花可以实现更高的访问率从传粉者在两个方面：（i）通过吸引经验不足的传粉者与大显示器;（ii）通过鼓励有经验的传粉者返回更大的回报的承诺。
Plants that display many open flowers usually receive higher pollinator visitation rates, but it is unclear whether pollinators select plants to visit based on the size of floral display (apparent size) or the value of the floral rewards (reward size). To examine how pollinators respond to apparent size and reward size, we observed bumble bees foraging among arrays of artificial plants.We constructed two kinds of artificial flower: (i) rewarding flowers that produced nectar constantly; and (ii) unrewarding flowers that produced only water. Thus, we could construct plants that varied both in numbers of flowers (apparent size) and in numbers of rewarding flowers (reward size).At the beginning of the experiments, bees made more visits to the plants with the most flowers, irrespective of the rewards they contained. However, after several hours of foraging, bees returned selectively to plants with the greater number of rewarding flowers, irrespective of the number of flowers the plant presented. After we replaced rewarding plants with non-rewarding plants, bees continued visiting plants at formerly-profitable locations for a while.Our results demonstrate that bees initially showed preferences for plants with larger floral displays, but eventually bees were able to discriminate between rewarding and less-rewarding plants of equal display size by associating a plant's location with its reward size. Our results suggest that plants with many flowers can achieve higher visitation rates from pollinators in two ways: (i) by attracting inexperienced pollinators with large displays; and (ii) by encouraging experienced pollinators to return with the promise of greater rewards.