Adil GÜNER, Vehbi ESER - optima

Posters
COMPONENTS OF POLLINATOR EFFECTIVENESS AT SEED
PRODUCTION IN LINARIA LILACINA LANGE (PLANTAGINACEAE)
156
Raquel PARRA 1 , Alfonso M. SÁNCHEZ-LAFUENTE 1
1 Universidad de Sevilla, Facultad de Biología, Departamento de Biología Vegetal y Ecología. parra@us.es
We recorded the activity of all bees visiting Linaria lilacina Lange (Plantaginaceae), an
endemic herb of mountain ranges in Southeastern Spain, in two populations and seasons, to
evaluate the influence of pollinator quantitative (abundance) and qualitative (bout length and
related pollen mixture) traits as predictors of their relative importance for seed production.
We identified all visitor species, their effectiveness in all flowers visited in each bout, and
their visitation likelihood (related to their abundance). From these observations we calculated
the effect on seed production of each pollinator group at individual flower and plant levels.
We found significant differences among pollinator groups (Apis, Bombus and Anthophora
bees) in flower (bout length) and plant (number of bouts) visitation likelihood. The effect of
bout length on seed set differed for each pollinator group. Thus, pollinator effectiveness at a
flower level depended upon the flower visitation order. A comparable effectiveness among
the three pollinator groups was found in the first flower visited, while Apis effectiveness
decreased at higher rates, compared to the other pollinator groups, in subsequent flowers
visited. Since pollinators were more effective in the first flowers visited in each bout, the
mean number of seeds produced per flower was higher for those making repeatedly shorter
bouts than for those making fewer but longer bouts. Thus, less abundant pollinators with
higher per flower effectiveness may contribute more to plant reproductive success than more
abundant ones with lower per flower effectiveness.
Keywords: pollinator effectiveness, pollinator abundant, bout length, seed production,
Linaria lilacina.
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