Reduced visitation to buzz-pollinated Cyanella hyacinthoides in the presence of other pollen sources in the hyperdiverse Cape Floristic Region

Abstract

Many plant species have floral morphologies that restrict access to floral resources, such as pollen or nectar, and only a subset of floral visitors can perform the handling behaviors required to extract restricted resources. Due to the time and energy required to extract resources from morphologically complex flowers, these plant species potentially compete for pollinators with co-flowering plants that have more easily accessible resources. A widespread floral mechanism restricting access to pollen is the presence of tubular anthers that open through small pores or slits (poricidal anthers). Some bees have evolved the capacity to remove pollen from poricidal anthers using vibrations, giving rise to the phenomenon of buzz-pollination. These bee vibrations that are produced for pollen extraction are presumably energetically costly, and to date, few studies have investigated whether buzz-pollinated flowers may be at a disadvantage when competing for pollinators’ attention with plant species that present unrestricted pollen resources. Here, we studied Cyanella hyacinthoides (Tecophilaeaceae), a geophyte with poricidal anthers in the hyperdiverse Cape Floristic Region of South Africa, to assess how the composition and relative abundance of flowers with easily accessible pollen affect bee visitation to a buzz-pollinated plant. We found that the number of pollinator species of C. hyacinthoides was not influenced by community composition. However, visitation rates to C. hyacinthoides were reduced when the relative abundances of flowers with more accessible resources were high. Visitation rates were strongly associated with petal color, showing that flower color is important in mediating these interactions. We conclude that buzz-pollinated plants might be at a competitive disadvantage when many easily accessible pollen sources are available, particularly when competitor species share its floral signals.