[aroid-l] [Pollinator] Fwd: "Heat reward for insect pollinators"
- Subject: [aroid-l] [Pollinator] Fwd: "Heat reward for insect pollinators"
- From: Wayne Owen w*@fs.fed.us
- Date: Fri, 21 Nov 2003 14:05:49 -0500
----- Forwarded by Wayne Owen/WO/USDAFS on 11/21/2003 02:04 PM -----
RESEARCH Hilton Pond
Center To: pollinator@coevolution.org
<research@hiltonpond. cc:
org> Subject: [Pollinator] Fwd: "Heat reward for insect pollinators"
Sent by:
pollinator-admin@coev
olution.org
11/20/2003 10:38 AM
Some of you may be interested in this paper in Nature.
Cheers,
BILL
>Brief Communications
>Nature 426, 243 - 244 (20 November 2003)
>Environmental biology: Heat reward for insect pollinators
>ROGER S. SEYMOUR*, CRAIG R. WHITE* & MARC GIBERNAUÝ
>* Environmental Biology, University of Adelaide, Adelaide 5005, Australia
>Ý Laboratoire d'Évolution et Diversité Biologique, Université Paul
Sabatier,
>31062 Toulouse, France
>
>In neotropical forests, adults of many large scarab beetle species spend
>most of their time inside the floral chambers of heat-producing flowers,
>where they feed and mate throughout the night and rest during the
following
>day, before briefly flying to another flower. Here we measure floral
>temperatures in Philodendron solimoesense (Araceae) in French Guiana and
the
>respiration rates of Cyclocephala colasi beetles at floral and ambient
>temperatures, and show that the beetles' extra energy requirements for
>activity are 2.0-4.8 times greater outside the flower than inside it. This
>finding indicates that heat produced by the flower constitutes an
important
>energy reward to pollinators, allowing them to feed and mate at a fraction
>of the energy cost that would be required outside the flower.
>
>http://www.nature.com/nature/
