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引人入胜的话题之一，其中被子植物的传粉一直引起了特别的科学兴趣。在过去的几十年里，许多研究极大地促进了我们对植物-传粉者相互作用多样性的机制理解。然而，我们对许多传粉系统，特别是欺骗性植物与其双翅传粉者之间传粉系统的具体性质的了解仍然有限，因为：a)双翅传粉者物种丰富，b)它们具有挑战性的鉴定和分类，c)大多数蝇类生态学的基本知识，以及d)几乎无限数量的潜在资源/模式可以模仿。西地中海马兜铃属植物是由苍蝇授粉的。然而，这只适用于科或属，而不适用于种水平，因为大多数物种的被模仿/被模仿资源是未知的。这些知识的差距将通过应用比较和多学科的方法来弥补，旨在鉴定传粉者分类群，吸引传粉者的机制，以及几种马兜铃属植物的欺骗策略。花香的性质和特殊性是特别有趣的。我们假设a)亲缘关系密切的马兜铃属植物的花香和传粉者（种、性别）不同；b)植物从潜在传粉动物中吸引传粉者具有高特异性（种、性别）；c)不同马兜铃属植物进化出不同的传粉策略和利用传粉者的不同行为。该项目将综合分类学与生态学和化学生态学方法相结合。传粉者将通过形态学和应用最新的分子高通量方法进行鉴定。花的香味成分将通过化学分析方法确定，而化学触角电图方法将用于识别生物活性化合物。用苍蝇传粉媒介进行生物测定将揭示花香混合物及其个别化合物的吸引力。化学分析和电生理分析与（电位）模型的模仿，连同生物测定，将阐明植物的欺骗策略。因此，该项目将为研究欺骗性传粉系统的传粉生态学和多样性提供新的见解，例如我们最近发现的食物铁虫（Chloropidae）和圆形马兜铃（Aristolochia rotunda）之间的新传粉系统。此外，该研究将有助于更好地理解欺骗性被子植物花和传粉者之间的相互作用。我们期望我们的研究结果将促进在这一领域和邻近领域的更多研究。我们的研究结果也将引起公众的极大兴趣，就像我们之前对圆形圆塔草的研究一样。

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.