[Pollinator] A Network of Plants and Pollinators

[Ladadams at aol.com]

A Network of Plants and Pollinators
By _DANIEL S. SONG_ 
(http://scientistatwork.blogs.nytimes.com/author/daniel-s-song/) 
 
Daniel S. SongBees on the legume Astragalus mongholicus.

_Daniel Song_ (http://casperlab.bio.upenn.edu/members-dan.xhtml) , a 
doctoral student at the University of  Pennsylvania, writes from Hovsgol National 
Park, Mongolia, where he is studying  how plants and pollinators form int
eraction  networks.

Tuesday, June 21 
Next time you grab a snack or sit down for a meal, take a minute to think  
about what you’re eating; chances are plants and insect pollinators were  
involved. Tomatoes, almonds, apples and coffee are just a few examples of the  
hundreds of foods consumed daily by people around the world that are  
insect-pollinated. How do pollinators behave in natural habitats? What goes into  
the decision to pollinate a certain flowering species? What is it about the 
 flowers that attract pollinators? Especially in light of colony collapse  
disorder, it is ever more important that we study how natural plant 
communities  maintain their pollination services. 
Our field site in the Dalbay Valley is interesting in that it has, in close 
 proximity, two drastically different areas: the valley floor and the upper 
 slope. The two areas differ in almost every way: plants, soil moisture, 
air  temperature and grazing pressure, to name just a few. Using this natural 
divide,  I can compare and contrast pollination activity in two ecologically 
distinct  areas. As for the pollinators, there is a diverse collection of 
insect  pollinators buzzing around: butterflies, moths, hoverflies and 
bumblebees, among  others. 
 
 
P.I.R.E.-Mongolia Project
_Previous Posts_ (http://scientistatwork.blogs.nytimes.com/tag/mongolia/) 
    *   _Climate Change in Mongolia_ 
(http://scientistatwork.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/06/27/climate-change-in-mongolia/)  


Daniel S. SongPulsatilla  multifida, flowering.
In this beautiful backdrop, I spend my summers in northern Mongolia 
studying  floral visual cues and pollinators. My dissertation work is divided into 
two  parts: measuring floral and pollinator traits and monitoring pollinator 
 visitation to flowers. The traits I am looking to measure are ones that 
are  relevant in the act of pollinating. Take, for example, two traits I am  
measuring: the depth of the flower (corolla tube depth) and bumblebee tongue  
(proboscis) length. One reason for pollinators to visit flowers is to 
extract  energy in the form of sugary, caloric nectar. The nectar typically sits 
at the  base of the flower, and to reach it the bumblebee has to unfurl its 
tongue to  taste the flower’s sweet reward. If the depth of the flower is 
longer than the  tongue of the bumblebee, it’s unlikely that the bumblebee 
would visit that  flower to get nectar. Corolla tube depth can, in an overly 
simplistic case,  explain why certain bumblebees visit, or do not visit, 
certain flowers. 
What connects the floral traits and the pollinator traits to each other is  
the monitoring of pollinator visitation to the flowers. The observations 
are  painstaking and tedious but provide the key to the lock. I set up several 
 four-square-meter plots upslope and on the valley floor to monitor 
pollinator  visitation and flower production daily. Recording pollinator visitation 
to the  flowers allows us to link their respective traits. This allows us 
to see if any  repeating patterns emerge, as in the example with the corolla 
depth and  proboscis: longer-tongued bees exclusively visit deeper flower 
tubes. 
I will spend a full 11 summer weeks at the field site to capture the  
beginning and end of pollination activity as well as flower production. As the  
climate changes, plant and animal communities may respond in unpredictable 
ways.  Natural pollination services (involving both the flower and pollinator) 
need to  be studied now to anticipate how one of our most precious natural 
commodities  will be  affected.
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