Abstract
Arundina graminifolia is an early successional plant on Iriomote Island, the Ryukyus, Japan, where it is endangered. Populations flower for more than half a year, and many inflorescences bloom for one to several months. The nectarless gullet flowers, which open for up to six days, are self-compatible but cannot self-pollinate spontaneously; thus they rely on pollinating agents for capsule production. Field observations at two habitats identified at least six species of bees and wasps, primarily mate-seeking males of Megachile yaeyamaensis and Thyreus takaonis, as legitimate pollinators. Thus, this orchid is a pollinator generalist, probably owing to its long blooming period and simple flower morphology. Carpenter bees, which were previously reported to pollinate this orchid, frequently visited flowers but were too large to crawl into the labellum chamber and never pollinated the flowers. Extrafloral nectaries on inflorescences attracted approximately 40 insect taxa but were not involved with pollination. Fruit-set ratios at the population level varied spatiotemporally but were generally low (5.2–12.4 %), presumably owing to infrequent flower visits by mate-seeking pollinators and the lack of food rewards to pollinators.
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Acknowledgments
I wish to express my sincere thanks to Tokiwa Shimabukuro and Masakatsu Kinjo, who taught me to identify A. graminifolia habitats, and Ryoichi Miyanaga, Yuuki Sugimoto, and Makoto Okamoto for field assistance. I am grateful to Yoshito Haneda, Yoshihiro Ikezaki, Fuminori Ito, Hirotsugu Ono, Masahiro Sueyoshi, and Kyohei Watanabe for kindly identifying some insect and spider specimens, and Masayuki Takamiya for kindly identifying ferns. This study was supported by grants from the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS KAKENHI Grant Number 11740432) and the Fujiwara Natural History Foundation, Tokyo. Partial funding for this research was also provided by the Research Institute for Humanity and Nature, Kyoto for the research project “Interactions between the natural environment and human social systems in subtropical islands.”
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Sugiura, N. Pollination and floral ecology of Arundina graminifolia (Orchidaceae) at the northern border of the species’ natural distribution. J Plant Res 127, 131–139 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10265-013-0587-x
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10265-013-0587-x