Abstract
Orchids are extraordinary among plants because many species are pollinated through sexual duplicity by producing flowers that mimic female insects to lure unsuspecting males. Previous work showed that sexual deception by the orchid Chiloglottis trapeziformis can have a negative impact on its wasp pollinator Neozeleboria cryptoides. We report that female wasps may be capable of mitigating the cost of the orchids' deception. Although male wasps quickly habituated to areas planted with unrewarding flower decoys, we found that the effectiveness of the chemical cue used by the wingless females to attract males increases with increasing distance from an orchid patch. The apparent specificity of the males' site-based avoidance strategy means that females emerging in areas occupied by flowering orchids could, potentially, leave the orchid colony by walking to increase their attractiveness.
Full Text
The Full Text of this article is available as a PDF (77.3 KB).
Selected References
These references are in PubMed. This may not be the complete list of references from this article.
- Schiestl Florian P., Peakall Rod, Mant Jim G., Ibarra Fernando, Schulz Claudia, Franke Stephan, Francke Wittko. The chemistry of sexual deception in an orchid-wasp pollination system. Science. 2003 Oct 17;302(5644):437–438. doi: 10.1126/science.1087835. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
- Wong Bob B. M., Schiestl Florian P. How an orchid harms its pollinator. Proc Biol Sci. 2002 Aug 7;269(1500):1529–1532. doi: 10.1098/rspb.2002.2052. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]