Temporal variation of floral reward can improve the pollination success of a rare flowering plant

Temporal variation of floral reward can improve the pollination success of a rare flowering plant | Research Square window.SnipcartSettings = { analytics: { enabled: false } }; (function() { var accessVector = localStorage.getItem('access_vector') || ''; window.dataLayer = window.dataLayer || []; if (accessVector) { window.dataLayer.push({ user: { profile: { profileInfo: { snid: accessVector } } } }); } })(); (function(w,d,s,l,i){w[l]=w[l]||[];w[l].push({'gtm.start':new Date().getTime(),event:'gtm.js'});var f=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],j=d.createElement(s),dl=l!='dataLayer'?'&l='+l:'';j.async=true;j.src='https://www.googletagmanager.com/gtm.js?id='+i+dl;f.parentNode.insertBefore(j,f);})(window,document,'script','dataLayer','GTM-K279D39R'); Browse Preprints In Review Journals COVID-19 Preprints AJE Video Bytes Research Tools Research Promotion AJE Professional Editing AJE Rubriq About Preprint Platform In Review Editorial Policies Our Team Advisory Board Help Center Sign In Submit a Preprint Cite Share Download PDF Research Article Temporal variation of floral reward can improve the pollination success of a rare flowering plant Gita Benadi, Raphael Kögel, Juho Lämsä, Robert J. Gegear This is a preprint; it has not been peer reviewed by a journal. https://doi.org/ 10.21203/rs.3.rs-1249387/v2 This work is licensed under a CC BY 4.0 License Status: Posted Version 2 posted You are reading this latest preprint version Show more versions Abstract Many pollinating animals visit a variety of flowering plant species. Rare plant species pollinated by such generalists may experience a low quality or quantity of pollination, depending on the pollinators' foraging behaviour. How plants cope with this rarity disadvantage is not well understood. One possibility would be to offer a higher floral reward, for example a higher nectar sugar concentration. However, since nectar production is costly, rare plants may only be able to increase their nectar concentration for a limited time and offer little reward afterwards. In this study we performed a laboratory experiment with bumblebees ( Bombus terrestris ) foraging on artificial flowers of two colours to investigate whether the bees' foraging behaviour produces a rarity disadvantage and if so, whether the rare flower type could improve its pollination success through temporal variation of its nectar sugar concentration, i.e. a temporary increase of nectar sugar followed by a period with low concentration. We found that when both flower colours offered equal rewards, the rare colour received only slightly fewer visits per flower, but had a considerably lower expected pollination success based on the bumblebees' visitation sequences. Temporal variation of the rare colour's sugar concentration increased both the quantity and quality of visits it received. This positive effect was reduced when there were fewer rare flowers or when two bumblebees foraged simultaneously. Our results suggest that temporal variation of floral rewards can alleviate, but not completely eliminate the rarity disadvantage. Nectar bumblebee artificial flower frequency dependence co-flowering. Full Text Supplementary Files SupplementBenadietal2023.pdf Cite Share Download PDF Status: Posted Version 2 posted You are reading this latest preprint version Show more versions Research Square lets you share your work early, gain feedback from the community, and start making changes to your manuscript prior to peer review in a journal. As a division of Research Square Company, we’re committed to making research communication faster, fairer, and more useful. We do this by developing innovative software and high quality services for the global research community. Our growing team is made up of researchers and industry professionals working together to solve the most critical problems facing scientific publishing. Also discoverable on Platform About Our Team In Review Editorial Policies Advisory Board Help Center Resources Author Services Accessibility API Access RSS feed Manage Cookie Preferences © Research Square 2026 | ISSN 2693-5015 (online) Privacy Policy Terms of Service Do Not Sell My Personal Information {"props":{"pageProps":{"initialData":{"identity":"rs-1249387","acceptedTermsAndConditions":true,"allowDirectSubmit":true,"archivedVersions":[],"articleType":"Research Article","associatedPublications":[],"authors":[{"id":80550455,"identity":"77d0fad5-9a43-42f6-8b85-9677ea633308","order_by":0,"name":"Gita Benadi","email":"data:image/png;base64,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","orcid":"https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5263-422X","institution":"Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg: Albert-Ludwigs-Universitat Freiburg","correspondingAuthor":true,"submittingAuthor":false,"prefix":"","firstName":"Gita","middleName":"","lastName":"Benadi","suffix":""},{"id":80550456,"identity":"ea8480fa-0e04-4937-bfe0-c65c133669c5","order_by":1,"name":"Raphael Kögel","email":"","orcid":"","institution":"Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg: Albert-Ludwigs-Universitat Freiburg","correspondingAuthor":false,"submittingAuthor":false,"prefix":"","firstName":"Raphael","middleName":"","lastName":"Kögel","suffix":""},{"id":80550457,"identity":"8b748d44-2007-41df-bc0e-2bdcd0164c9a","order_by":2,"name":"Juho Lämsä","email":"","orcid":"","institution":"University of Oulu: Oulun Yliopisto","correspondingAuthor":false,"submittingAuthor":false,"prefix":"","firstName":"Juho","middleName":"","lastName":"Lämsä","suffix":""},{"id":80550458,"identity":"d9239a35-9ab8-4157-a5ab-3f34334781be","order_by":3,"name":"Robert J. 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