[Pollinator] NPR WATCH: The Secret Buzz Only Bumblebees Know To Unlock Our Favorite Crops

Tue Jul 19 13:36:51 PDT 2016

Dear Kelly:

Yes, this video is attractive, entertaining and informative.  As someone
who has studied buzz-pollination in four countries since 1976 (Hey, I can't
the THAT old!), though, bits of the text and narration are a little
misleading.  What's wrong with the following statement?

In contrast, buzz-pollinated flowers encourage bees to eat the pollen
directly and hope some grains will make it to another flower. The
evolutionary strategy is baffling to scientists.

Huh?  When was the last time anyone saw a bee gobbling pollen as it emerges
from the anther holes?  Most buzz-pollinated flowers are visited by females
collecting the pollen for their offspring or developing sisters.  Males of
the same species tend to avoid buzz-pollinated flowers unless they are
looking for nubile females.  Furthermore, this mode of pollination has been
studied intensely in America since the 1960's and evolutionary biologists
are not baffled by it anymore.

Second, the narration compares the buzz-pollinated flower to a private
dining club.  That's fine, the clientele is limited to those capable of
harvesting the grains via sonication.  However, this implies that when
bumblebees forage all they visit are the buzz-pollinated flowers during the
SAME foraging bout.  This is not the case.  The bumblebees must participate
in the same free-for-all on other flowering species in the area.  Why?
Most buzz-pollinated flowers lack nectar.  If the bee did nothing but
forage on buzz-pollinated flowers during a collecting trip it would soon
run out of energy and collapse before retuning to the nest.  Sonicating
bees almost invariably visit nectar-secreting flowers on most
buzz-pollinating trips.  When they switch to nectar secreting flowers they
also collect some pollen and it is mixed with buzz-pollinated flowers.  The
late Walter Macior was among the first to show this in the '60's - '80's in
his work on buzz-pollinated Dodecatheon and Pedicularis species of North
America.  I found it in bumblebees foraging on buzz-pollianted Echeandia in
Central America in the '70's.  Bumblebees aren't the only ones that do
this, by the way.  It happens in Australia where bumblebees are not native
and one sees the same mixed pollen loads on the hind legs of halictids and
Leioproctus (colletids) caught on buzz-pollinated Dianella, other lily-like
plants and Hibbertia.  Sun orchids (Thelymitra) actually mimic
buzz-pollinated plants.  They wear clusters of ball-like hairs on their
columns to lure bees into vibrating them while their bee butts contact the
stick plug that lets them carry of the orchid's pollen.   All this stuff
from the labs of Bernhardt, Buchmann, Macior and others has been published
for years.

If you don't believe me ask Dr Buchmann who would have made a superior
consultant on this video.

Peter

On Tue, Jul 19, 2016 at 2:24 PM, Kelly Rourke <kr at pollinator.org> wrote:

> Nice educational video on buzz pollination from KQED:
>
>
>
>
> http://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2016/07/19/486501293/watch-the-secret-buzz-only-bumblebees-know-to-unlock-our-favorite-crops
>
>
>
> Kelly Rourke
>
> Program Coordinator
>
> Pollinator Partnership
>
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