Hewes Amanda E, McWhorter Todd J, Rico-Guevara Alejandro
Department of Biology, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA.
Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture, Seattle, WA, USA.
Commun Biol. 2025 Mar 1;8(1):339. doi: 10.1038/s42003-025-07693-w.
Animal pollination is common among flowering plants. Increased morphological matching between floral and pollinator traits is thought to increase pollen transfer and feeding efficiency, but we lack studies that empirically demonstrate this. Working with Australian honeyeaters, we find that there is positive correlation between bill-corolla matching and pollen deposition at flowers, but no correlation with how efficiently birds can extract floral nectar. The species with the lowest bill-corolla matching deposited the fewest pollen grains but had the highest feeding efficiency, showing that bill-corolla matching expectations were met on the plant side of this interaction but not on the pollinator side. Finally, we find different interspecific patterns of pollen deposition at the scales of a single flower visit versus the landscape, due to differences in patterns of plant visitation. This work illustrates the need for more studies that directly correlate trait matching to fitness proxies of plants and avian pollinators.
动物传粉在开花植物中很常见。人们认为，花部与传粉者特征之间形态匹配度的提高会增加花粉传递和取食效率，但我们缺乏实证研究来证明这一点。通过对澳大利亚食蜜鸟的研究，我们发现喙与花冠的匹配度与花朵上的花粉沉积呈正相关，但与鸟类提取花蜜的效率无关。喙与花冠匹配度最低的物种沉积的花粉粒最少，但取食效率最高，这表明在这种相互作用中，从植物角度来看，符合喙与花冠匹配的预期，但从传粉者角度来看并非如此。最后，由于植物访花模式的差异，我们发现在单次花朵访问和景观尺度上，花粉沉积存在不同的种间模式。这项研究表明，需要开展更多将特征匹配与植物和鸟类传粉者的适合度指标直接关联起来的研究。
