What's the 'buzz' about? The ecology and evolutionary significance of buzz-pollination.
TL;DR: It is suggested that buzz-pollination evolves as the result of an escalation in the competition between plants and pollen-consuming floral visitors (including pollen thieves and true pollinators) to control the rate of pollen removal from flowers.
About: This article is published in Current Opinion in Plant Biology.The article was published on 2013-08-01. It has received 266 citations till now. The article focuses on the topics: Buzz pollination & Pollen source.
Citations
More filters
TL;DR: Evidence of the negative impacts of systemic insecticides on decomposition, nutrient cycling, soil respiration, and invertebrate populations valued by humans is demonstrated.
Abstract: Large-scale use of the persistent and potent neonicotinoid and fipronil insecticides has raised concerns about risks to ecosystem functions provided by a wide range of species and environments affected by these insecticides. The concept of ecosystem services is widely used in decision making in the context of valuing the service potentials, benefits, and use values that well-functioning ecosystems provide to humans and the biosphere and, as an endpoint (value to be protected), in ecological risk assessment of chemicals. Neonicotinoid insecticides are frequently detected in soil and water and are also found in air, as dust particles during sowing of crops and aerosols during spraying. These environmental media provide essential resources to support biodiversity, but are known to be threatened by long-term or repeated contamination by neonicotinoids and fipronil. We review the state of knowledge regarding the potential impacts of these insecticides on ecosystem functioning and services provided by terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems including soil and freshwater functions, fisheries, biological pest control, and pollination services. Empirical studies examining the specific impacts of neonicotinoids and fipronil to ecosystem services have focused largely on the negative impacts to beneficial insect species (honeybees) and the impact on pollination service of food crops. However, here we document broader evidence of the effects on ecosystem functions regulating soil and water quality, pest control, pollination, ecosystem resilience, and community diversity. In particular, microbes, invertebrates, and fish play critical roles as decomposers, pollinators, consumers, and predators, which collectively maintain healthy communities and ecosystem integrity. Several examples in this review demonstrate evidence of the negative impacts of systemic insecticides on decomposition, nutrient cycling, soil respiration, and invertebrate populations valued by humans. Invertebrates, particularly earthworms that are important for soil processes, wild and domestic insect pollinators which are important for plant and crop production, and several freshwater taxa which are involved in aquatic nutrient cycling, were all found to be highly susceptible to lethal and sublethal effects of neonicotinoids and/or fipronil at environmentally relevant concentrations. By contrast, most microbes and fish do not appear to be as sensitive under normal exposure scenarios, though the effects on fish may be important in certain realms such as combined fish-rice farming systems and through food chain effects. We highlight the economic and cultural concerns around agriculture and aquaculture production and the role these insecticides may have in threatening food security. Overall, we recommend improved sustainable agricultural practices that restrict systemic insecticide use to maintain and support several ecosystem services that humans fundamentally depend on.
354 citations
Imperial College London1, University of Bristol2, Royal Holloway, University of London3, University of Exeter4, University of Cambridge5, East Malling Research Station6, University of Reading7, Game & Wildlife Conservation Trust8, University of Northampton9, University of Edinburgh10, Natural History Museum11, Federal Emergency Relief Administration12, United Kingdom Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs13, Natural England14, University of Leeds15, Syngenta16
TL;DR: In this article, the importance of conserving pollinator diversity to maintain a suite of functional traits and provide a diverse set of pollinator services is discussed, and the authors explore how to better understand and mitigate the factors that threaten insect pollinator richness, placing their discussion within the context of populations in predominantly agricultural landscapes in addition to urban environments.
Abstract: Insect pollination constitutes an ecosystem service of global importance, providing significant economic and aesthetic benefits as well as cultural value to human society, alongside vital ecological processes in terrestrial ecosystems. It is therefore important to understand how insect pollinator populations and communities respond to rapidly changing environments if we are to maintain healthy and effective pollinator services. This chapter considers the importance of conserving pollinator diversity to maintain a suite of functional traits and provide a diverse set of pollinator services. We explore how we can better understand and mitigate the factors that threaten insect pollinator richness, placing our discussion within the context of populations in predominantly agricultural landscapes in addition to urban environments. We highlight a selection of important evidence gaps, with a number of complementary research steps that can be taken to better understand: (i) the stability of pollinator communities in different landscapes in order to provide diverse pollinator services; (ii) how we can study the drivers of population change to mitigate the effects and support stable sources of pollinator services and (iii) how we can manage habitats in complex landscapes to support insect pollinators and provide sustainable pollinator services for the future. We advocate a collaborative effort to gain higher quality abundance data to understand the stability of pollinator populations and predict future trends. In addition, for effective mitigation strategies to be adopted, researchers need to conduct rigorous field testing of outcomes under different landscape settings, acknowledge the needs of end-users when developing research proposals and consider effective methods of knowledge transfer to ensure effective uptake of actions.
135 citations
TL;DR: It is shown that field‐realistic neonicotinoid exposure can have impacts on both foraging ability and homing success of bumblebees, with implications for the success of Bumblebee colonies in agricultural landscapes and their ability to deliver crucial pollination services.
Abstract: Summary
The ability to forage and return home is essential to the success of bees as both foragers and pollinators. Pesticide exposure may cause behavioural changes that interfere with these processes, with consequences for colony persistence and delivery of pollination services.
We investigated the impact of chronic exposure (5–43 days) to field-realistic levels of a neonicotinoid insecticide (2·4 ppb thiamethoxam) on foraging ability, homing success and colony size using radio frequency identification (RFID) technology in free-flying bumblebee colonies.
Individual foragers from pesticide-exposed colonies carried out longer foraging bouts than untreated controls (68 vs. 55 min). Pesticide-exposed bees also brought back pollen less frequently than controls indicating reduced foraging performance.
A higher proportion of bees from pesticide-exposed colonies returned when released 1 km from their nests; this is potentially related to increased orientation experience during longer foraging bouts. We measured no impact of pesticide exposure on homing ability for bees released from 2 km, or when data were analysed overall.
Despite a trend for control colonies to produce more new workers earlier, we found no overall impacts of pesticide exposure on whole colony size.
Synthesis and applications. This study shows that field-realistic neonicotinoid exposure can have impacts on both foraging ability and homing success of bumblebees, with implications for the success of bumblebee colonies in agricultural landscapes and their ability to deliver crucial pollination services. Pesticide risk assessments should include bee species other than honeybees and assess a range of behaviours to elucidate the impact of sublethal effects. This has relevance for reviews of neonicotinoid risk assessment and usage policy world-wide.
127 citations
TL;DR: Divergence time estimates suggest Myrtales diverged from Geraniales ∼124Mya during the Aptian of the Early Cretaceous, and BioGeoBEARS showed significant improvement in the likelihood score when the "jump dispersal" parameter was added and issues with conducting diversification analyses more generally are examined.
117 citations
TL;DR: A signaling model is proposed to account for the molecular episodes that SVs induce within the cell, and in so doing a number of interesting questions that need to be addressed by future research in plant acoustics are uncovered.
Abstract: Being sessile, plants continuously deal with their dynamic and complex surroundings, identifying important cues and reacting with appropriate responses. Consequently, the sensitivity of plants has evolved to perceive a myriad of external stimuli, which ultimately ensures their successful survival. Research over past centuries has established that plants respond to environmental factors such as light, temperature, moisture, and mechanical perturbations (e.g. wind, rain, touch, etc.) by suitably modulating their growth and development. However, sound vibrations (SVs) as a stimulus have only started receiving attention relatively recently. SVs have been shown to increase the yields of several crops and strengthen plant immunity against pathogens. These vibrations can also prime the plants so as to make them more tolerant to impending drought. Plants can recognize the chewing sounds of insect larvae and the buzz of a pollinating bee, and respond accordingly. It is thus plausible that SVs may serve as a long-range stimulus that evokes ecologically relevant signaling mechanisms in plants. Studies have suggested that SVs increase the transcription of certain genes, soluble protein content, and support enhanced growth and development in plants. At the cellular level, SVs can change the secondary structure of plasma membrane proteins, affect microfilament rearrangements, produce Ca(2+) signatures, cause increases in protein kinases, protective enzymes, peroxidases, antioxidant enzymes, amylase, H(+)-ATPase / K(+) channel activities, and enhance levels of polyamines, soluble sugars and auxin. In this paper, we propose a signaling model to account for the molecular episodes that SVs induce within the cell, and in so doing we uncover a number of interesting questions that need to be addressed by future research in plant acoustics.
92 citations
Cites background from "What's the 'buzz' about? The ecolog..."
...Furthermore, plants facilitate several of their vital processes, such as pollination, nitrogen assimilation, etc., through mutualism with animals (Simon et al., 2011; De Luca and Vallejo-Marin, 2013; Schoner et al., 2015), and such mutualisms have played an important role in shaping ecosystems....
[...]
...A strong example of this is the widespread phenomenon of ‘buzz pollination’, where pollen from anthers is released only against a particular frequency of SV (buzz) produced by a specific pollinator (De Luca and Vallejo-Marin, 2013)....
[...]
...An example of this is the widely spread phenomenon of ‘buzz pollination’, which is being utilized by approximately 20 000 plant species (De Luca and Vallejo-Marin, 2013)....
[...]
References
More filters
01 Jan 1983
591 citations
"What's the 'buzz' about? The ecolog..." refers background in this paper
...The e dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.pbi.2013.05.002 www.sciencedirect.com species of bees (Hymenoptera: Apoidea) from seven families and more than 50 genera (but notably not honey-bees, Apis mellifera), and in one species of hover fly (Diptera: Syrphidae) [1,5]....
[...]
...How does buzz-pollination work? In bees, sonication behaviours have only been reported in females, which use the collected pollen to feed developing larvae [1], and whether male bees also perform buzzpollination is currently unknown....
[...]
...Despite its widespread taxonomic distribution in plants and importance to natural and agricultural systems, buzz-pollination has received limited attention, with the last comprehensive review published exactly 30 years ago [1]....
[...]
...Introduction Approximately 15,000–20,000 species of plants possess flowers that release pollen only through small openings (pores or slits) in the anther’s tips [1]....
[...]
...com species of bees (Hymenoptera: Apoidea) from seven families and more than 50 genera (but notably not honey-bees, Apis mellifera), and in one species of hover fly (Diptera: Syrphidae) [1,5]....
[...]
TL;DR: A supertree of angiosperm families from published phylogenetic studies shows that diversification rate is a labile attribute of lineages at all levels of the tree, reflecting the interactive effects of biological traits and the environment.
Abstract: Angiosperms are among the major terrestrial radiations of life and a model group for studying patterns and processes of diversification. As a tool for future comparative studies, we compiled a supertree of angiosperm families from published phylogenetic studies. Sequence data from the plastid rbcL gene were used to estimate relative timing of branching events, calibrated by using robust fossil dates. The frequency of shifts in diversification rate is largely constant among time windows but with an apparent increase in diversification rates within the more recent time frames. Analyses of species numbers among families revealed that diversification rate is a labile attribute of lineages at all levels of the tree. An examination of the top 10 major shifts in diversification rates indicates they cannot easily be attributed to the action of a few key innovations but instead are consistent with a more complex process of diversification, reflecting the interactive effects of biological traits and the environment.
589 citations
"What's the 'buzz' about? The ecolog..." refers background in this paper
...[43]; data on poricidal anthers from Vallejo-Marı́n et al....
[...]
TL;DR: On the average, nectar-collecting bumble bees deposited 0.6% of the pollen removed from the flowers of Erythronium grandiflorum (Liliaceae) onto the stigmas of subsequently visited flowers.
Abstract: On the average, nectar-collecting bumble bees deposited 0.6% of the pollen removed from the flowers of Erythronium grandiflorum (Liliaceae) onto the stigmas of subsequently visited flowers. Because the proportion deposited declined as the amount removed increased, an individual plant would maximize its total pollen dispersal by relying on many pollen-removing visits while limiting the pollen removed by each pollinator. This restriction of pollen removal could be achieved by a plant presenting only a small portion of its pollen at one time (packaging) and/or by limiting the amount of presented pollen that a pollinator removes during a single visit (dispensing). The restriction of pollen removal required to maximize the expected total deposition on stigmas depends on the number of pollinator visits a plant receives, variation in the frequency of visits, and the pattern of pollen removal during a series of visits. Many aspects of floral biology contribute to a plant's ability to restrict pollen removal, incl...
448 citations
"What's the 'buzz' about? The ecolog..." refers background in this paper
...Poricidal anthers may exclude some visitors (pollen eating beetles, flies, and non-buzzing bees), and could also act as a pollen-dispensing mechanism to maximize pollen export by legitimate buzz-pollinators [6,22,38,39] (Figure S1a)....
[...]
TL;DR: Observations sur la biologie de reproduction d'especes du Bresil and du Venezuela comporte des donnees sur the classification, the morphologie, the cytologies, le spectre de pollinisation, le mode dispersion des graines, and enfin sur l'evolution des de two familles.
Abstract: Observations sur la biologie de reproduction d'especes du Bresil et du Venezuela. L'etude comporte des donnees sur la classification, la morphologie, la cytologie, le spectre de pollinisation, le mode dispersion des graines, et enfin sur l'evolution des deux familles
245 citations
TL;DR: The various structural and behavioral adaptations of female bees for acquiring and transporting pollen are the basis of this review.
Abstract: Bees require pollen for their reproduction and pollen comprises the basic larval food for bees. Most bees acquire pollen passively during flower visitation, but female bees may also collect pollen actively with the aid of various structural and behavioral adaptations. Most bees have evolved adaptations to concentrate pollen into discrete loads and transport pollen back to their nests. The various structural and behavioral adaptations of female bees for acquiring and transporting pollen are the basis of this review.
233 citations
"What's the 'buzz' about? The ecolog..." refers background in this paper
...The e dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.pbi.2013.05.002 www.sciencedirect.com species of bees (Hymenoptera: Apoidea) from seven families and more than 50 genera (but notably not honey-bees, Apis mellifera), and in one species of hover fly (Diptera: Syrphidae) [1,5]....
[...]
...com species of bees (Hymenoptera: Apoidea) from seven families and more than 50 genera (but notably not honey-bees, Apis mellifera), and in one species of hover fly (Diptera: Syrphidae) [1,5]....
[...]