Ollerton Jeff, Alarcón Ruben, Waser Nickolas M, Price Mary V, Watts Stella, Cranmer Louise, Hingston Andrew, Peter Craig I, Rotenberry John
University of Northampton, UK.
Ann Bot. 2009 Jun;103(9):1471-80. doi: 10.1093/aob/mcp031. Epub 2009 Feb 14.
'Pollination syndromes' are suites of phenotypic traits hypothesized to reflect convergent adaptations of flowers for pollination by specific types of animals. They were first developed in the 1870s and honed during the mid 20th Century. In spite of this long history and their central role in organizing research on plant-pollinator interactions, the pollination syndromes have rarely been subjected to test. The syndromes were tested here by asking whether they successfully capture patterns of covariance of floral traits and predict the most common pollinators of flowers.
Flowers in six communities from three continents were scored for expression of floral traits used in published descriptions of the pollination syndromes, and simultaneously the pollinators of as many species as possible were characterized.
Ordination of flowers in a multivariate 'phenotype space' defined by the syndromes showed that almost no plant species fall within the discrete syndrome clusters. Furthermore, in approximately two-thirds of plant species, the most common pollinator could not be successfully predicted by assuming that each plant species belongs to the syndrome closest to it in phenotype space.
The pollination syndrome hypothesis as usually articulated does not successfully describe the diversity of floral phenotypes or predict the pollinators of most plant species. Caution is suggested when using pollination syndromes for organizing floral diversity, or for inferring agents of floral adaptation. A fresh look at how traits of flowers and pollinators relate to visitation and pollen transfer is recommended, in order to determine whether axes can be identified that describe floral functional diversity more successfully than the traditional syndromes.
“传粉综合征”是一组表型性状，被认为反映了花朵针对特定类型动物传粉的趋同适应。它们于19世纪70年代首次提出，并在20世纪中叶得到完善。尽管传粉综合征有着悠久的历史，且在组织植物 - 传粉者相互作用的研究中发挥着核心作用，但它们很少接受检验。在此通过探讨传粉综合征是否成功捕捉到花部性状的协变模式并预测花朵最常见的传粉者，对其进行了检验。
对来自三大洲六个群落的花朵，依据已发表的传粉综合征描述中所使用的花部性状表达进行评分，同时尽可能多地对物种的传粉者进行特征描述。
在由传粉综合征定义的多变量“表型空间”中对花朵进行排序分析表明，几乎没有植物物种落在离散的综合征簇内。此外，在大约三分之二的植物物种中，假设每个植物物种属于表型空间中最接近它的综合征，无法成功预测其最常见的传粉者。
通常阐述的传粉综合征假说未能成功描述花部表型的多样性，也无法预测大多数植物物种的传粉者。在使用传粉综合征来组织花部多样性或推断花部适应的媒介时，建议谨慎行事。建议重新审视花朵和传粉者的性状如何与访花和花粉传递相关，以便确定是否能够识别出比传统综合征更成功地描述花部功能多样性的轴。
