Pollinators and visitors of the generalized food-deceptive orchid Dactylorhiza majalis in North-Eastern Poland

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Abstract
Pollinator foraging behavior plays a key role in breeding and therefore affects the evolution of the orchid reproductive strategy. Food-deceptive orchids usually implement a generalized plant pollination strategy and a relatively diverse group of pollinators visit them.Dactylorhiza majalisis a food-deceptive, early-flowering orchid that relies on insect-mediated pollination. This study’s objectives were to identifyD. majalis’ pollinators and flower visitors and their foraging behaviors onD. majalisinflorescences. We also assessed the bending movement time to determine the relationship between bending time and the duration of pollinators’ visits. To assess pollination efficiency, we measured the spur length ofD. majalisflowers, which is expected to affect the mechanical fit to pollinators/“potential” pollinators. The arthropod fauna were investigated to examine the availability of “potential” pollinators in populations. We identifiedApis melliferaas this orchid’s main pollinator and confirmed that few of the flower visitors belonged to Diptera (12 individuals, 9 taxa), Hymenoptera (3 individuals, 3 taxa), or Coleoptera (2 individuals, 2 taxa) in our dataset, which was collected over a 2-year period and includes 360 h of video. The arthropods were collected by a sweep net inD. majalispopulations and there were fewer Hymenoptera (2.9–23.2%) and Coleoptera (4.4–23.8%) visitors but more Diptera (23.3–58.6%) visitors. We found thatA. melliferaforaged in different ways onD. majalisinflorescences, thereby resulting in cross-pollination and/or geitonogamy; however, the bending time data supported the hypothesis about promoting cross-pollination while decreasing self-pollination, but these data do not exclude the possibility of geitonogamy.
Funding Information
  • National Science Center in Poland (UMO-2013/09/B/NZ8/03350)

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