Thanks. The first article has more info, e.g. that those beetles are flightless.
But that makes me suspect that they spend a lot of time on one tree, only pollinating that tree, which would be pointless because there is no exchange of genes.
> To minimize the risk of self-pollination, which can result in inbreeding depression and recessive mutations, the flowers open in the morning and the stigmas are receptive to pollen that is brought to them by foraging beetles throughout the day. When evening comes, the innermost tepals close around the carpel and trap the pollinating beetle. While the tepals are closed, the beetle deposits pollen all over the receptive stigmas. The stigmas then close and the anthers become active, covering the same beetle in fresh pollen so that when the sepals open in the morning, it will fly out and find another flower to pollinate. This precise delay in flower function helps to ensure cross pollination.
I have to say that if we're also talking about wild grasses, my wire fox terrier is also a pollinator. He collects an incredible amount of seeds and burrs during his walkies investigations and I have to pick them out of his fur afterwards (risky because he gets annoyed easily).
My grandpappy told me that if you want a good crop of pawpaws you have to hang a dead cat in the tree. I think dead cats were in greater supply back in his day.
Fascinating flowers for a tree though. Red meat color and odor only a fly could love.
The giant arum is another example of beetle pollinated flowers. It smells of manure so attracts manure-loving beetles.
With more traditional pollinators, I've always found that a fascinating example of bee pollination that does not involve the plant taking advantage of the insect drinking its nectar is Ophrys Apifera, which has a distinct bee-shape silhouette and relies on the mating instincts of male bees in order to pollinate.
If it becomes a problem I would imagine that most victim plants will evolve certain defence mechanisms. For example, some insects will simply chew through flowers to reach the nectar stores - so I think in such cases a flower would just evolve a tougher skin, or secrete something that deters insects from doing that.
The earliest angiosperms appeared in the Cretaceous. This is after the appearance of Hymenoptera (Jurassic) and Diptera (Triassic). While a nice story, this needs additional substantiation. An alternative explanation is likelier imo.
The early Hymenoptera were predatory, like wasps still are.
Bees, which feed on pollen and nectar from plant flowers, instead of catching other insects, have evolved much later from wasp-like Hymenoptera, after angiosperms were already widespread.
Right, the whole point of bees as insect pollinators (reflecting that they are recent evolutionary line) is that they are by a healthy margin the most intelligent arthropod. They will inspect then successfully pollinate anything floral over a wide geographic range. Most insect pollinators are instinctually tied to certain species/families.
You mean honeybees? Because there are lots of other (wild) bee species that are very specialized. And they also contradict most of the other things we think we know about bees: they are usually solitary, and they rarely sting (honeybees only do that to protect the hive).
Maybe it's the other way around: humans selected honeybees to "domesticate" because of their versatility (and of course the fact that they produced honey)?
Thanks, I never thought about bees like that. They certainly can use many types of flowers, as evidenced by various sorts of honey. Nitpick: some spiders are pretty darn intelligent and even seem to dream when they sleep, apparently.
My magnolia is the only thing that seems to attract honeybees, which I rarely see otherwise. The article doesn't seem to justify the "not bees" part, though. I'd imagine bees can pollinate them too.
Magnolia make one of my favorite smells on earth. We have a huge one in front of a house we have moved away from and back to many times. The intoxicating smell when I mow the leaves and seeds beneath it is something I want to keep forever. I collected the red seeds and put them in a bottle with alcohol and I go back and smell it often to remember. The house flooded four days before closing on selling it, so we got more time with the house. We are wrapping that up and we will say goodbye to that old house, and it’s now quite huge magnolia in the front. I never knew the flowers were pollinated by beetles or why the scent smelled like that. I collected seeds last year and cold stratified a bunch all winter in our fridge. I planted them this spring and 7 survived the process and are now growing in red cups in my new house.
Mountain mints are also pollinated by beetles—and a bazillion other critters. They are extraordinary pollinator magnets. Beetles, bees, flies, wasps, mosquitos (!), moths, butterflies, ...
A recent study of just a few mountain mint species (https://doi.org/10.1080/00222933.2024.2411072) found that they attracted a crazy variety of pollinators. Check the supplementary materials for the full list.
Mosquitoes (which are flies) don’t really deserve the exclamation mark, given that the males of all mosquito species live exclusively on nectar, with the females (of most but not all species) augmenting their diet with animal protein in order to produce eggs.
The long, thin proboscis originally evolved for nectar drinking like in many other insects (and some birds!); its use for sucking animal blood was a later adaptation.
These are the original articles this re-heat was created from:
- https://www.zmescience.com/science/news-science/magnolias-be...
- https://gardens.si.edu/learn/blog/the-botany-of-magnolias/
Thanks. The first article has more info, e.g. that those beetles are flightless.
But that makes me suspect that they spend a lot of time on one tree, only pollinating that tree, which would be pointless because there is no exchange of genes.
The desperation of the immobile
The second article goes into more detail:
> To minimize the risk of self-pollination, which can result in inbreeding depression and recessive mutations, the flowers open in the morning and the stigmas are receptive to pollen that is brought to them by foraging beetles throughout the day. When evening comes, the innermost tepals close around the carpel and trap the pollinating beetle. While the tepals are closed, the beetle deposits pollen all over the receptive stigmas. The stigmas then close and the anthers become active, covering the same beetle in fresh pollen so that when the sepals open in the morning, it will fly out and find another flower to pollinate. This precise delay in flower function helps to ensure cross pollination.
A lot of plants aren’t pollinated by bees. There’s pollinator wasps, flies, moths, butterflies… even birds and bats are pollinators
One of those moths is this guy, who (in flight, not so much in still images) looks and sounds like a miniature hummingbird: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hummingbird_hawk-moth
I noticed these for the first time earlier this summer. Incredible insects! They really do give a hummingbird impression.
rare instance where the German name Taubenschwänzchen ('little dove-tail') is nicer than the English name
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For many people, it is the other way around. It is very remarkable that there is a bird, which looks so much like a big version of this butterfly!
After all, in Europe these butterflies are commonplace, but I've never seen the American bird in my life.
Finding hawk moth caterpillars on my tomato plant was one of the bigger wtfs of my adult life
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Very common around my mom's house.
I have to say that if we're also talking about wild grasses, my wire fox terrier is also a pollinator. He collects an incredible amount of seeds and burrs during his walkies investigations and I have to pick them out of his fur afterwards (risky because he gets annoyed easily).
Seeds are not gametes. While your dog may help spread the seeds, they are not assisting in the sexual reproduction itself.
If you push me into a bush then you'll make me a pollinator as well
mosquitoes too, though it pains me to give them credit for anything
True, all mosquitoes drink nectar, and only females of some species drink blood.
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And olive trees have genders, with the male pollinating the surrounding females.
That's pretty common in plants: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dioecy
And... wolves?
https://esajournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ecy....
And by wind. The major staple crops are all wind pollinated.
My pawpaws (Asimina triloba) mainly need (house) flies to pollinate. They make their flowers look like meat.
I have a couple 100 foot rows of them, it's tricky to get good pollination.
My grandpappy told me that if you want a good crop of pawpaws you have to hang a dead cat in the tree. I think dead cats were in greater supply back in his day.
Fascinating flowers for a tree though. Red meat color and odor only a fly could love.
For anyone that’s close, go to the upcoming Ohio Pawpaw festival! https://ohiopawpawfest.com/
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You grow these commercially? Always wondering where I can buy good quality ones when they're in season (in NYC area)
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the little beetle that could, and pawpaw's are self-incompatible. -https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asimina_triloba#Pollination
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Ants as well
Yeah I was about to say ants with passion fruit flowers.
[dead]
The giant arum is another example of beetle pollinated flowers. It smells of manure so attracts manure-loving beetles.
With more traditional pollinators, I've always found that a fascinating example of bee pollination that does not involve the plant taking advantage of the insect drinking its nectar is Ophrys Apifera, which has a distinct bee-shape silhouette and relies on the mating instincts of male bees in order to pollinate.
Interesting. I never thought worker bees retained any mating instincts.
AFAIK worker bees are female. Drones are male and don't actually gather any honey, but just go around looking for a queen to mate with.
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Some insects gather nectar from a flower and don't pollinate the flower. This is called nectar robbing.
See https://www.backyardecology.net/not-all-flower-visitors-are-...
What’s the best security control against this robbery?!
If it becomes a problem I would imagine that most victim plants will evolve certain defence mechanisms. For example, some insects will simply chew through flowers to reach the nectar stores - so I think in such cases a flower would just evolve a tougher skin, or secrete something that deters insects from doing that.
This is what the shape of the flower and its placement of the stamen and pistils are all about.
great idea... How do you make sure there is an exchange.
The earliest angiosperms appeared in the Cretaceous. This is after the appearance of Hymenoptera (Jurassic) and Diptera (Triassic). While a nice story, this needs additional substantiation. An alternative explanation is likelier imo.
The early Hymenoptera were predatory, like wasps still are.
Bees, which feed on pollen and nectar from plant flowers, instead of catching other insects, have evolved much later from wasp-like Hymenoptera, after angiosperms were already widespread.
So the timeline fits into the story.
> were predatory ... ?
Were they? Sawflies are herbivores, and are at minimum share a common ancestor with those that were not herbivores.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S096098221...
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Pretty sure I see many bees on Magnolias.
Right, the whole point of bees as insect pollinators (reflecting that they are recent evolutionary line) is that they are by a healthy margin the most intelligent arthropod. They will inspect then successfully pollinate anything floral over a wide geographic range. Most insect pollinators are instinctually tied to certain species/families.
You mean honeybees? Because there are lots of other (wild) bee species that are very specialized. And they also contradict most of the other things we think we know about bees: they are usually solitary, and they rarely sting (honeybees only do that to protect the hive).
Maybe it's the other way around: humans selected honeybees to "domesticate" because of their versatility (and of course the fact that they produced honey)?
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Jumping spiders are smarter
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Thanks, I never thought about bees like that. They certainly can use many types of flowers, as evidenced by various sorts of honey. Nitpick: some spiders are pretty darn intelligent and even seem to dream when they sleep, apparently.
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My magnolia is the only thing that seems to attract honeybees, which I rarely see otherwise. The article doesn't seem to justify the "not bees" part, though. I'd imagine bees can pollinate them too.
You should plant clover. You'll get plenty of bees.
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Magnolia make one of my favorite smells on earth. We have a huge one in front of a house we have moved away from and back to many times. The intoxicating smell when I mow the leaves and seeds beneath it is something I want to keep forever. I collected the red seeds and put them in a bottle with alcohol and I go back and smell it often to remember. The house flooded four days before closing on selling it, so we got more time with the house. We are wrapping that up and we will say goodbye to that old house, and it’s now quite huge magnolia in the front. I never knew the flowers were pollinated by beetles or why the scent smelled like that. I collected seeds last year and cold stratified a bunch all winter in our fridge. I planted them this spring and 7 survived the process and are now growing in red cups in my new house.
https://imgur.com/a/OAHQCW4
Living fossils, like Ginkos
And Equisetum/Horsetail/Schachtelhalm
"Drop the tle, it's cleaner."
Mountain mints are also pollinated by beetles—and a bazillion other critters. They are extraordinary pollinator magnets. Beetles, bees, flies, wasps, mosquitos (!), moths, butterflies, ...
A recent study of just a few mountain mint species (https://doi.org/10.1080/00222933.2024.2411072) found that they attracted a crazy variety of pollinators. Check the supplementary materials for the full list.
Mosquitoes (which are flies) don’t really deserve the exclamation mark, given that the males of all mosquito species live exclusively on nectar, with the females (of most but not all species) augmenting their diet with animal protein in order to produce eggs.
The long, thin proboscis originally evolved for nectar drinking like in many other insects (and some birds!); its use for sucking animal blood was a later adaptation.
I have mountain mint growing in my yard and every pollinator imaginable goes to that plant.
I have slender mountain mint and it used to be a popular pollinator spot... until I planted figwort. Never had anything get action like the figwort!
I have spearmint in my garden, and the bees and butterflies are literally pushing each other out of the way to get at them some days.
Not old, evolved. Bees were going extinct, remember?