| Abstract Detail
Recent Topics Posters Saunders, N. E. [1], Sipes, S.D. [2]. The importance of contemporaneously flowering species to the pollination of Abronia ammophila, a rare endemic. ABRONIA ammophila (Nyctaginaceae) is a rare endemic known from only four populations along the shores of Lake Yellowstone, Wyoming, USA. Plants exhibit a mixed mating system. Flowers not visited by pollinators can set seed autogamously. However, plants are visited by a variety of noctuid and hawk moths, as well as butterflies and bees, and seed set resulting from cross-pollination is high. A number of contemporaneously flowering species share potential pollinators with A. ammophila, including Phacelia hastata, Phlox hoodii, Lupinus argenteus, and Polemonium pulcherrimum. To determine the efficacy of various floral visitors as pollinators, we examined captured insects for the presence of Abronia ammophila pollen. To elucidate the degree to which other species share pollinators with A. ammophila, we examined insects for the presence of non-Abronia pollen to determine the relative importance of contemporaneously flowering species to its pollination success. We found a variety of different pollen on the bodies of insects captured on A. ammophila. Noctuid moths carried more target pollen than any other insect visitor (and were most abundant), supporting our earlier conclusion that moths are A. ammophila’s primary pollinators. We found a variety of pollen types on the bodies of insects captured on A. ammophila, demonstrating that the moths visit other flowers in the plant community. Because pollinators may depend on floral resources from more than one species, conservation of A. ammophila may demand the preservation of these complex pollinator webs, which includes the preservation of contemporaneously flowering species.
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1 - Southern Illinois University Carbondale, Department of Plant Biology, 1125 Lincoln Dr., Mail Code 6509, Carbondale, IL, 62901-6509, USA
2 - Southern Illinois University Carbondale, Plant Biology and Center for Ecology, 1125 Lincoln Dr., mail code 6509, Carbondale, Il, 62901, USA
Keywords:
pollination web
facilitation
noctuidae
Nyctaginaceae.
Presentation Type: Recent Topics Poster
Session: 48a-6
Location: Auditorium/Bell Memorial Union
Date: Tuesday, August 1st, 2006
Time: 12:30 PM
Abstract ID:1077 |
