Floral scent and deceptive pollination in Aristolochia

植物与其他生物之间的相互作用是生态学和进化生物学中最吸引人的话题之一，其中被子植物的授粉一直引起人们的特别科学兴趣。在过去的几十年里，许多研究对我们从机制上理解植物-传粉者相互作用中的多样性做出了很大贡献。然而，我们对许多授粉系统的具体性质的了解仍然有限，特别是那些在欺骗性植物和它们的双翅目传粉者之间的授粉系统，这是因为：a)双翅目物种的丰富，b)它们具有挑战性的识别和分类，c)关于大多数苍蝇物种生态的基本知识，以及d)几乎无限数量的潜在资源/模式可以被模仿。众所周知，西地中海马兜铃是通过苍蝇授粉的。然而，这只适用于科或属，但大多数不适用于物种水平，因为大多数物种所模仿的资源是未知的。这些知识的差距将通过应用比较和多学科的方法来弥合，旨在鉴定传粉者分类群，传粉者吸引的机制，以及几个马兜铃属物种的欺骗策略。花香的性质和特性特别令人感兴趣。我们假设，a)花香和传粉者(种、性别)在近缘马兜铃属物种中不同，b)植物以高度专一性(种、性别)吸引潜在可用传粉者区系中的传粉者，以及c)不同的马兜铃属物种进化出不同的授粉策略和利用它们的传粉者不同的行为。该项目将综合分类学与生态学和化学生态学方法相结合。传粉者将通过形态和应用最新的分子高通量方法进行鉴定。花香成分将通过化学分析方法确定，而化学-电子天线方法将用于识别生物活性化合物。苍蝇传粉者的生物检测将揭示花香混合物及其单独化合物的吸引力。模拟电势模型的化学分析和电生理分析，以及生物分析，将阐明植物的欺骗策略。因此，这个项目将为研究虚假授粉系统中的授粉生态和多样性提供新的见解，比如我们最近发现的食物窃取绿蝇科和圆形马兜铃之间的新授粉系统。此外，这项研究将有助于更好地全面了解欺骗性被子植物花与传粉者之间的相互作用。我们期待我们的成果将促进在这一领域和邻近领域进行更多的研究。我们的研究结果也将引起公众的极大兴趣，就像我们之前在圆顶藻上的研究一样。

Interactions between plants and other organisms represent one of the most fascinating topics in ecology and evolutionary biology, among which pollination of angiosperms by animals consistently evokes particular scientific interest. During the last decades many studies considerably contributed to our mechanistic understanding of the diversity in plant-pollinator interactions. However, our knowledge about the specific nature of many pollination systems, especially those between deceptive plants and their dipteran pollinators, is still limited due to: a) the dipteran species richness, b) their challenging identification and taxonomy, c) the rudimentarily knowledge about the ecology of most fly species, and d) the virtually unlimited number of potential resources / models that could be imitated. West Mediterranean Aristolochia species are known to be pollinated by flies. However, this is only true for the family or genus but mostly not for the species level with the resource imitated / mimicked unknown for most of the species. These gaps of knowledge will be closed by applying a comparative and multidisciplinary approach aiming at the identification of pollinator taxa, the mechanisms of pollinator attraction, and the deceptive strategies of several Aristolochia species. The nature and specificity of floral scents is of particular interest. We hypothesize that a) floral scents and pollinators (species, sexes) differ among closely related Aristolochia species, b) plants attract pollinators from the potentially available pollinator fauna with high specificity (species, sex), and c) different Aristolochia species evolved different pollination strategies and exploit different behaviors of their pollinators. The project combines integrative taxonomy with ecological and chemoecological methods. Pollinators will be identified morphologically and by applying latest molecular high-throughput methods. Flower scent composition will be determined by chemical-analytical methods, while chemical-electroantennographic approaches will serve to identify biologically active compounds. Bioassays with fly pollinators will reveal the attractiveness of floral scent mixtures and individual compounds thereof. Chemical analytical and electrophysiological analyses with (potential) models imitated, together with bioassays, will elucidate the deceptive strategy of the plants. Hence this project will provide novel insights into the pollination ecology and diversity in deceptive pollination systems, like the new one between food steeling Chloropidae and Aristolochia rotunda that we recently discovered (kleptomyiophily). Additionally, the study will contribute to a better general understanding of interactions between deceptive angiosperm flowers and pollinators. We expect that our results will foster even more research in this and adjacent fields. Our results will also be of considerable interest for the public, as our previous studies in A. rotunda were.