The Bombus also prefers the temperature of the flower to pollinate
The vast majority of species of flowering plants can not produce seeds only with the help of the wind and need animals such as insects and birds that do the work of pollinating, transferring and transferring pollen between the flowers of different plants.
This work is often done in exchange for a retribution, such as drinking sugar-rich nectar, because pollinating agents, in order to efficiently obtain food, look for flowers with characteristics associated with a higher probability of obtaining this type of compensation.
The color, shape and aroma of the flowers are the characteristic features for the attraction of the human senses, and it has been discovered for centuries that insects also react to this type of visual and sensory stimuli. Only with the use of modern technology has it been possible to confirm the large number of floral features that are attractive to pollination agents, such as the emission of CO2, the UV absorbing pigmentation, humidity, certain fluorescence, the color of the nectar and most surprisingly, for the floral temperature.
It has been proven that bees use heat detectors on their legs and antennae to differentiate between two flowers with different temperatures that can differ by only two degrees. The latest studies in eLife Sciences Publications and the Universities of Bristol and Exeter, report that Bombus, or bumblebees, can also detect these temperature differences in the flower.
The study "The diversity of floral temperature patterns, and their use by pollinators", using thermal images of more than 100 species of plants with flowers taken in sunlight, revealed a wide range of temperature patterns and more than half of the evaluated species had flowers in which some parts of the petals were at least 2 ° C warmer than the rest. Based on the observation of these data, the researchers hypothesized that pollinators could use these temperature patterns to decide which flowers to visit.
In the case of the Bombus, in the exercise there were two types of artificial flowers that contained heating elements. Artificial flowers in a first experiment had a warm center or a warm periphery, while those in the second had warmer centers in two different ways. In all the experiments, one variant contained a drop of sugar, while in the other it only offered water.
As controllers, flowers with disconnected heating elements were used.
The result was that the Bombus recognized different temperature patterns and in less than 20 visits they learned to feed on those flowers that would give them a retribution. It is important to note that when there were no temperature patterns, as in the controls, the bumblebees could not distinguish the gratifying flowers from the non-gratifying ones.
The remarkable thing is that, once the bumblebees learned to associate a certain temperature pattern with a sugary reward, they continued to prefer this type of flower even when the reward was eliminated. These results indicate that the bumblebees used the temperature patterns of the flowers (and not other signals) to make an informed decision when searching for food.
Plants often have to compete for pollinators, either with other plant species or with other members of their own species. Any trait that allows a flower to attract more pollinators than its competitors will give it an evolutionary advantage. Plants clearly do not invent new traits with the intention of manipulating pollinators, however, in each generation there are small mutations that change the floral features, facilitating the approach and perfection of the interaction between the pollinator and the flower.
There are many other floral traits that remain hidden from our eyes, but with the combination of natural observation and new technological tools, such as thermal imaging cameras or 3D printers, we will continue to discover the richness of the strategies used by pollinators and plants to interact with each other
It is important for science to perfect the observation of the phenomenon of pollination. By way of data, only in EEU it is calculated that the work of pollination (if it were necessary to pay the pollinating agents), would cost USD 300 million.
Source: Martín Carrillo O. - Blueberries Consulting
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