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A prominent example of pollination mutualism is with bees and flowering plants. Bees use these plants as their food source with pollen and nectar. In turn, they transfer pollen to other nearby flowers, inadvertently allowing for cross-pollination. Cross-pollination has become essential in plant reproduction and fruit/seed production.
The models may overestimate the specificity of the mutualisms, because species may only associate with alternative species when their 'normal' mutualist is rare or absent. For example, oligolectic bees visit a small number of flowers for pollen. However, these bees do not generally have strongly specialised anatomy, morphology or physiology.
The flower secretes a fluid (see Coryanthes alborosea picture) into the flower lip, which is shaped like a bucket. The male orchid bees (not the females) are attracted to the flower by a strong scent from aromatic oils, which they store in specialized spongy pouches inside their swollen hind legs, as they appear to use the scent in their ...
Bees look for flowers that have brightly colored petals, have a sweet or minty fragrance, are symmetrical, bloom in the daytime, and offer lots of pollen and nectar on which to feed.
Mutualism is an interaction between two or more species, where species derive a mutual benefit, for example an increased carrying capacity. Similar interactions within a species are known as co-operation. Mutualism may be classified in terms of the closeness of association, the closest being symbiosis, which is often confused with mutualism.
The ways that bees distinguish between robbed and unrobbed flowers have not been studied, but they have been thought to be related to the damage on petal tissue after robbery or changes in nectar quality. [13] Xylocopa sonorina steals nectar through a slit they make in the base of the petals. If nectar robbing severely reduces the success of ...
Bees pollinating. A pollination network is a bipartite mutualistic network in which plants and pollinators are the nodes, and the pollination interactions form the links between these nodes. [1]
When both species gain from their interaction, mutualism develops. The mutualistic link between pollinators and plants is very well illustrated. In this instance, the animal pollinator (bee, butterfly, beetle, hummingbird, etc.) receives nourishment in exchange for carrying the plants' pollen from flower to flower (usually nectar or pollen).