"Heat reward for insect pollinators"

From: Wayne Owen wowen at fs.fed.us> on 2003.11.21 at 19:05:49(10845) ----- Forwarded by Wayne Owen/WO/USDAFS on 11/21/2003 02:04 PM ----- RESEARCH Hilton Pond Center To: pollinator@coevolution.org +More org> Subject: [Pollinator] Fwd: "Heat reward for insect pollinators" Sent by: pollinator-admin@coev olution.org 11/20/2003 10:38 AM Some of you may be interested in this paper in Nature. Cheers, BILL >Brief Communications >Nature 426, 243 - 244 (20 November 2003) >Environmental biology: Heat reward for insect pollinators >ROGER S. SEYMOUR*, CRAIG R. WHITE* & MARC GIBERNAU? >* Environmental Biology, University of Adelaide, Adelaide 5005, Australia >? Laboratoire d'?volution et Diversit? Biologique, Universit? Paul Sabatier, >31062 Toulouse, France > >In neotropical forests, adults of many large scarab beetle species spend >most of their time inside the floral chambers of heat-producing flowers, >where they feed and mate throughout the night and rest during the following >day, before briefly flying to another flower. Here we measure floral >temperatures in Philodendron solimoesense (Araceae) in French Guiana and the >respiration rates of Cyclocephala colasi beetles at floral and ambient >temperatures, and show that the beetles' extra energy requirements for >activity are 2.0-4.8 times greater outside the flower than inside it. This >finding indicates that heat produced by the flower constitutes an important >energy reward to pollinators, allowing them to feed and mate at a fraction >of the energy cost that would be required outside the flower. > >http://www.nature.com/nature/

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