[Pollinator] Press release on birds foot violet

[Peter Bernhardt]

You have been sent information and materials from the Bernhardt/Meier
Laboratory at Saint Louis University.  The proposed 2 paragraphs (below),
link and attached file (galley proof) should be sufficient to construct a
press release based on a 3-year study now in press with the online,
peer-reviewed "Journal of Pollination Ecology."  This journal uses British
spelling so bicolor becomes bicolor.  If you want more information please
contact me via email or office telephone (314-977-7152).  It is my
suggestion that you wait a least 5 working days before releasing this
information so it does not compete for space with articles and commentaries
on the aftermath of the American, presidential election.

FYI. Fieldwork was completed at Cuivre River Park and the Shaw Nature
Reserve so administrators and employees at those places have been contacted
as well.  The Shaw Nature Reserve is owned by the Missouri Botanical Garden
and President Peter Wyse Jackson requested this proposed release before
passing it on to staff in MOBOT Public Relations.  As I am a Research
Associate of The Royal Botanic Gardens and Domain Trust it seemed best to
turn this over to Dr. Durretto and G. Bourke as seeds collected at Cuivre
River and Shaw by our team now grow at the Mt. Tomah Garden (New South
Wales, Australia).  We would also like to see the "Journal of Pollination
Ecology" receive more positive exposure.

.......................

Suggested Titles for This Press Release (use your imagination)...

A Violet of A Different Color?

or

Roses Are Red, Some Violets are Warm?

"Remember how you were told that a dark coat keeps you a little warmer on a
cold but sunny day?  Some plants blooming in chilly environments have dark
purple or almost black patches on their flowers to keep cold-blooded
insects toasty warm as they pollinate.  Three years of research at the
Bernhardt/Meier Laboratory at the St. Louis University illustrate a new
side to this colorful tale in a upcoming issue of the online, "Journal of
Pollination Ecology."  The birds foot violet (Viola pedata) has two,
common, color forms when it blooms during the cool, Missouri, April.  The
concolor form makes flowers with 5 light violet-mauve petals.  The flower
of a bicolor plant has 3 mauve petals plus two top petals that are a deep,
dark, funereal purple.  Using thermocouples, and a hypodermic tissue probe,
Dr Retha Edens-Meier learned that these dark petals are up to 3 degrees
Celsius (5.4 degrees Fahrenheit) warmer than the surrounding atmosphere
when they stand in a pool of sunlight.  As bees usually prefer to forage
upside down on these flowers the hind legs and abdomen of the insect are
warmed by the petals as it drinks nectar and collects pollen.

What is so unusual about these findings is that, when given a choice over
two years, native bees  preferred to forage on the  concolor form so
concolor flowers made more seeds compared to bicolors.  Comparing violet
populations, at two isolated sites, the research team noted that when the
plants grew in a sunny, open, limestone glade (at the Shaw Nature Reserve)
the concolors outnumbered the bicolors by 40 to one.  It was very different
in the shade of a forested slope (Cuivre River State Park) where bicolors
and concolors occurred in almost equal numbers or bicolors outnumbered
concolors by almost two to one in one season.  As pools of light shifted
over the course of the day under the trees, in the cooler forest,
cold-blooded bees needed the less desirable bicolors to warm themselves
briefly as a single bee often visited more than 30 flowers over a 20 minute
period before stopping to rest."

.......................................

Please revise the two paragraphs as needed.  To watch a brief video (made
by Dr Retha Edens-Meier) of a native bee standing on her head to forage
while clinging to and pressing her abdomen against the dark petals visit
the following link...  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=190rBkdvVXE


Peter Bernhardt, Prof. of Biology
Saint Louis University, Saint Louis, MO
Research Assoc. The Missouri Botanical Garden
Research Assoc. The Royal Botanic Gardens and Domain Trust, Sydney, NSW.
Office: 314-977-7152
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