VIDEO DOI: https://doi.org/10.48448/7pcv-r698

technical paper

SEB Conference Prague 2024

July 03, 2024

Prague, Czechia

Buzz-pollinating bees deliver thoracic vibrations to flowers through periodic biting

keywords:

pollination

bombus

sonication

Pollinator behaviour is vital to plant-pollinator interactions, affecting the acquisition of floral rewards, patterns of pollen transfer, and plant reproductive success. During buzz pollination, bees produce vibrations with their indirect flight muscles to extract pollen from tube-like flowers. Vibrations can be transmitted to the flower via the mandibles, abdomen, legs, or thorax directly. Vibration amplitude at the flower determines the rate of pollen release and should vary with the coupling of bee and flower. This coupling often occurs through anther biting, but no studies have quantified how biting affects flower vibration. Here, we used high-speed filmography to investigate how flower vibration amplitude changes during biting in Bombus terrestris visiting two species of buzz-pollinated flowering plants: Solanum dulcamara and S. rostratum (Solanaceae). We found that floral buzzing drives head vibrations up to three times greater than those of the thorax, which doubles the vibration amplitude of the anther during biting compared to indirect vibration transmission when not biting. However, the efficiency of this vibration transmission depends on the angle the bee bites the anther. Variation in transmission mechanism, combined with the diversity of vibrations across bee species, yields a rich assortment of potential strategies that bees could employ to access rewards from buzz pollinated flowers.

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