Relationship between floral colour and pollinator composition in four plant communities
Reverté Saiz, Sara
Bosch, Jordi, 1961-, dir. (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. Departament de Biologia Animal, de Biologia Vegetal i d'Ecologia)
Retana Alumbreros, Javier (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. Departament de Biologia Animal, de Biologia Vegetal i d'Ecologia)
Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. Facultat de Biociències

Date:	2014
Description:	37 p.
Abstract:	Pollinators use a variety of floral cues to locate resources, but the relative importance of these different cues on pollinator foraging decisions is unclear. However, floral colour is undoubtedly one of the most important, as evidenced in previous works revealing the importance of floral colour on pollinator choices and determining flower visitor composition. Our purpose is to establish whether there is a relationship between flower colour and pollinator composition in natural communities. We measured the floral reflectance spectrum of 109 plant populations, from 300 to 700 nm, and divided it in four broad bands of 100 nm each. We found a phylogenetic signal on floral colour variables, and considered this in our analyses. Our results show a lack of concordance between colour spectra and pollinator assemblages. Nevertheless, this work proves that colour determines plant-pollinator relationships in some degree. Thus, particular pollinator groups display preferences for certain bands of the colour spectrum. These preferences match those expected from the pollination syndromes theory. Future work on this issue should combine floral colour along with other floral traits, to assess the importance of the combination of the main floral features for determining pollinator attraction and behaviour together.
Rights:	Aquest document està subjecte a una llicència d'ús Creative Commons. Es permet la reproducció total o parcial, la distribució, i la comunicació pública de l'obra, sempre que no sigui amb finalitats comercials, i sempre que es reconegui l'autoria de l'obra original. No es permet la creació d'obres derivades.
Language:	Anglès
Series:	Facultat de Biociències. Treballs de màster i postgrau. Màster en Ecologia Terrestre i Gestió de la Biodiversitat
Document:	Treball de fi de postgrau
Subject:	Pol·linització ; Investigació

37 p, 1.2 MB

The record appears in these collections:
Research literature > UAB research groups literature > Research Centres and Groups (research output) > Experimental sciences > CREAF (Centre de Recerca Ecològica i d'Aplicacions Forestals)
Research literature > Dissertations > Biosciences. MT