On the bright side said Dr Barlow the slugs did not like the seedlings of some of the desirable wildflowers such as wood cranesbill rough hawkbit and greater burnet.
#Even slight temperature increases causing tropical forests to blossoma new study led by Florida State university researcher Stephanie Pau shows that tropical forests are producing more flowers in response to only slight increases in temperature.
and rainfall affect the number of flowers that tropical forests produce. Results showed that clouds mainly have an effect over short-term seasonal growth
While other studies have used long-term flower production data this is the first study to combine these data with direct estimates of cloud cover based on satellite information.
The results of the study Clouds and Temperature Drive Dynamic Changes in Tropical Flower Production was published July 7 in the journal Nature Climate Change.
and how many flowers they produce is one vital sign of their health said Pau an assistant professor in Florida State's Department of Geography.
and flower production will decrease. We're not seeing that yet at the sites we looked at
and cloudiness on local flower production Betancourt said. It confirms other recent findings that in the tropics even a modest warming can pack quite a punch.
and year-to-year flower production in two contrasting tropical forests--a seasonally dry forest on Barro Colorado Island Panama and an ever-wet forest in Luquillo Puerto rico. The seasonally dry site according to Pau
has been producing more flowers at an average rate of 3 percent each year over the last several decades an increase that appears to be tied to warming temperatures.
We studied flowers because their growth is a measure of the reproductive health and overall growth of the forests and because there is long-term data on flower production available Pau said.
The amount of sunlight reaching tropical forests due to varying amounts of cloud cover is an important factor just not the most important
when it comes to flower production. Clouds are a huge uncertainty in understanding the impacts of climate change on tropical forests Pau said.
#Flowers: Pistil leads pollen in life -and-death dancepollination essential to much of life on earth requires the explosive death of the male pollen tube in the female ovule.
Millions of times on a spring day there is a dramatic biomolecular tango where the flower rather than adorning a dancer's teeth is the performer.
Among the fundamental biology questions at play in the sex lives of flowers for example are how cells recognize each other know what to do
Then he took the pollen from each to pollinate normal flowers. The pollen tubes from all three plants reliably made it to ovules
How patterns on flowers help bees spot their first nectar-rich flowerbumblebees searching for nectar go for signposts on flowers rather than the bull's eye.
n and Catherine Plowright from the University of Ottawa in Canada shows that the markings at the center of a flower are not as important as the markings that will direct the bees to the center.
which visual stimuli do they use to identify that first flower that will provide them with the reward they are looking for?
versus pattern position in a group of bumblebees that have searched never for nectar before i e. flower-naive bees.
and video recordings the researchers exposed a total of over 500 flower-naive bees to two types of patterns on artificial clay flowers:
Radial patterns are composed of distinctly colored lines extending from the outside of the flower converging at the center where nectar
either central or peripheral on the corolla (or petals) of the flower. They found that both visual properties had significant effects on flower choice.
However when pitted against each other pattern type trumped position. Bees preferred radial patterns over concentric patterns.
It appears that the visual cues from the radial pattern guide the bees to the periphery of the flower.
Once there they will find the rewarding nectar in the center of the flower. The researchers conclude:
The behavior of bees has been shaped over the course of evolution as adaptations to flower appearance.
Flowers may be taking advantage of a principle that will be familiar to students and teachers alike:
All you have to do to enhance the wild pollinators of crops on farmland is increase flower abundance in field margins roadsides or crop edges.'
Also endangered bee species often specialize on flowers that cannot easily be established on farmland such as heather or bilberry.
#Gene that helps honey bees find flowers (and get back home) discoveredhoney bees don't start out knowing how to find flowers
or even how to get around outside the hive. Before they can forage they must learn how to navigate a changing landscape
the uglier a flower or weed the more allergy-inducing its pollen tends to be.
The relationship between allergy-causing pollens and their flowers is something like a beauty pageant Valet said.
A general rule of thumb is that flowers that smell or look pretty attract insect pollenators so they are not generally important allergens
The new species E. petrikensis is a shrub growing to two meters with emerald green slightly glossy foliage and beautiful dense clusters of small magenta flowers.
#Bee and wild flower biodiversity loss slowsdeclines in the biodiversity of pollinating insects and wild plants have slowed in recent years according to a new study.
British wildflower diversity had declined about 20 per cent from the 1950s to the 1980s but again the declines have ceased in the past 20 years.
and of wildflowers had declined. Our new work is based on a much bigger dataset and improved analytic methods and it reveals much more detail about the scale and timing of biodiversity losses.
or to the quality of the pollination services they provide to wildflowers or agricultural crops.
#Drought makes Borneos trees flower at the same timetropical plants flower at supra-annual irregular intervals.
In addition mass flowering is typical for the tropical forests in Borneo and elsewhere where hundreds of different plant timber species from the Dipterocarpaceae family flower synchronously.
All representatives have beautiful clusters of flowers varying in color from deep purple through fuchsia and pale pink to pure white.
flowers. The discovery is a boon for organic as well as conventional tree fruit growers. The researchers recently published their study in the journal Biological Control.
After one week aphid densities were significantly lower on trees adjacent to flowers than on control plots
To select an appropriate flower for the study the researchers screened six candidates including marigolds and zinnias.
Hoverflies and other insects are attracted to flowers because they can find food in the form of pollen and nectar.
Researchers compared plots of apple trees with sweet alyssum to plots without flowers. While the sweet alyssum attracted hoverflies as desired Gontijo
But was it really the flowers that attracted aphid predators? The scientists sprayed protein markers on the sweet alyssum
and later captured insects and spiders at a distance from the flower plots. Many of the insects and spiders tested positive for the proteins proving that they had visited the flowers.
The woolly apple aphid is surprisingly damaging for an aphid attacking tree shoots and roots said Betsy Beers an entomologist based at WSU's Tree Fruit Research
The article Flowers promote aphid suppression in apple orchards was published in the July 2013 edition of Biological Controlstory Source:
All representatives have beautiful clusters of flowers varying in color from deep purple through fuchsia and pale pink to pure white.
flowers. The discovery is a boon for organic as well as conventional tree fruit growers. The researchers recently published their study in the journal Biological Control.
After one week aphid densities were significantly lower on trees adjacent to flowers than on control plots
To select an appropriate flower for the study the researchers screened six candidates including marigolds and zinnias.
Hoverflies and other insects are attracted to flowers because they can find food in the form of pollen and nectar.
Researchers compared plots of apple trees with sweet alyssum to plots without flowers. While the sweet alyssum attracted hoverflies as desired Gontijo
But was it really the flowers that attracted aphid predators? The scientists sprayed protein markers on the sweet alyssum
and later captured insects and spiders at a distance from the flower plots. Many of the insects and spiders tested positive for the proteins proving that they had visited the flowers.
The woolly apple aphid is surprisingly damaging for an aphid attacking tree shoots and roots said Betsy Beers an entomologist based at WSU's Tree Fruit Research
The article Flowers promote aphid suppression in apple orchards was published in the July 2013 edition of Biological Controlstory Source:
and flowers and you can do it without the junk. Junk is needed not. Noncoding DNA is DNA that doesn't code for any proteins.
and water and its flowers generate heat to attract pollinators. Now researchers report in the journal Genome Biology that they have sequenced the lotus genome
The team tested a wide variety of sources of biomass--leaves stems flowers seeds and legumes--with particular interest in those with high protein content
Presumably the irreplaceable host of M. chomskyi are the beautiful flowers of the widespread Onagraceae or the so-called Evening-primrose family.
Unlike the other representatives of the family that chew leaves or flower petals many species of Megachile neatly cut circular pieces of leaves or petals for nest construction.
Despite their tiny brains bees are smart enough to pick out the most attractive flowers by watching other bees and learning from their behaviour.
By using simple logic they see which coloured flowers are the most popular and conclude that those of the same colour must also contain lots of energy-rich nectar.
Most worker bees visit thousands of flowers every day in their search for nectar to feed their queen's brood.
Copying flower colour choices may be a shortcut to success bypassing the exhausting process of exploring each flower to see
Bees were trained to know that sugar could be found on flowers where other foragers were present.
The bees then watched through a screen as their companions chose a particular flower colour
When later allowed to choose a flower colour alone the test bees copied their companions'choices.
if they knew that those bees were visiting bitter-tasting flowers. Instead the test bees actively avoided the flower colours that other bees chose.
The flowers were made bitter using quinine--a flavour used in tonic water which bees typically dislike.
Story Source: The above story is provided based on materials by Queen Mary University of London. Note:
Metals in flowers may play role in bumblebee declinebeekeepers and researchers nationally are reporting growing evidence that a powerful new class of pesticides may be killing off bumblebees.
and nickel found in flowers growing in soil that has been contaminated by exhaust from vehicles industrial machinery and farming equipment.
but can do so only after they visit a contaminated flower. Therefore the insects are exposed to toxins before they even sense the presence of metals.
Ashman and George Meindl coauthor of the study and a Phd candidate in Ashman's lab studied bumblebee behavior using the Impatiens capensis a North american flower that blooms in summer.
Its flowers are large producing a high volume of sugar-rich nectar each day--an ideal place for bumblebees to forage.
and aluminum in the flowers'nectar influenced bumblebee behavior Ashman and Meindl used two groups of uncontaminated flowers one group of flowers contaminated by nickel and another contaminated by aluminum.
When a bumblebee visited a flower in an array the entire visitation was recorded as well as the time spent (in seconds) foraging on each individual flower.
This included monitoring whether the bee moved from a contaminated to a noncontaminated flower whether the bee moved to the same group it had sampled just or whether the bee left the flower group without visiting other individual blooms.
Following each observed visit all flowers in the array were replaced with new flowers to ensure accurate results.
We found that the bees still visited those flowers contaminated by metal indicating that they can't detect metal from afar said Ashman.
However once bumblebees arrive at flowers and sample the nectar they are able to discriminate against certain metals.
In the study the bees were able to taste discriminate against and leave flowers containing nickel.
However this was not the case for the aluminum-treated flowers as the bees foraged on the contaminated flowers for time periods equal to those of the noncontaminated flowers.
It's unclear why the bees didn't sense the aluminum said Meindl. However past studies show that the concentrations of aluminum found throughout blooms tend to be higher than concentrations of nickel.
This suggests that the bees may be more tolerant or immune to its presence. These results also have implications for environmentally friendly efforts to decontaminate soil in particular a method called phytoremediation--a promising approach that involves growing metal-accumulating plants on polluted soil to remove such contaminates.
because the bees observed in the study foraged on metal-rich flowers. She states that further research is needed to identify plants that are ecologically safe
Most lettuce varieties flower in spring or early summer and then drop their seeds--a trait that is likely linked to their origin in the Mediterranean region
#Social bees mark dangerous flowers with chemical signalsscientists already knew that some social bee species warn their conspecifics
Researchers at the University of Tours (France) in collaboration with the Experimental Station of Arid Zones of Almeria (Spain) have demonstrated now that they also use chemical signals to mark those flowers where they have previously been attacked.
whether bees are capable of using evasive chemical signals to mark those flowers where they have previously been attacked.
Evasive alarm pheromones provoke an escape response in insects that visit a particular flower and until now we were not sure of the role that these pheromones played in social bees.
Our results indicate that unlike solitary bees social bees use this type of alert system on flowers to warn their conspecifics of the presence of a nearby predator as explained by Ana L. Llandres from the University of Tours
Solitary bees responded similarly in the case of flowers that had been attacked by control predators and control flowers.
Despite approaching both types of flower the probability of landing on control flowers was much higher.
The scientists also detected that the probability of social bees rejecting flowers was much greater
#Bees get a buzz from flower nectar containing caffeineyou may need a cup of coffee to kick start the day
but it seems honeybees also get their buzz from drinking flower nectar containing caffeine. Publishing in Science researchers have shown that caffeine improves a honeybee's memory
and citrus flowers were three times more likely to remember a flower's scent than those feeding on just sugar.
Remembering floral traits is difficult for bees to perform at a fast pace as they fly from flower to flower
and we have found that caffeine helps the bee remember where the flowers are. In turn bees that have fed on caffeine-laced nectar are laden with coffee pollen
Typically the nectar in the flower of a coffee plant contains almost as much caffeine as a cup of instant coffee.
and return to some flowers over others will help inform how landscapes could be managed better.
Flowers mislead traditional taxonomyfor hundreds of years plant taxonomists have worked to understand how species are related.
And paramount among these morphological traits were aspects of flower shape and arrangement. In the papilionoid legumes--a large diverse group that includes the common pea
and bean--most species have specialized highly butterfly-shaped flowers with bilateral symmetry fused stamens and strongly differentiated standard wing
Papilionoid genera with radially symmetric or weakly differentiated flower parts have been regarded as primitive members of the group.
and the putatively related Sweetia as primitive papilionoid groups because they lack the characteristic papilionate flowers.
Yet evidence from DNA sequences suggested that these plants were closely related to two rainforest genera with true papilionate flowers Vatairea and Vataireopsis.
Despite their striking differences in flower shape Luetzelburgia Sweetia Vatairea and Vataireopsis turned out to be close relatives.
Moreover the two genera with papilionate flowers were not each other's closest relatives. According to Cardoso We showed that similarity in floral morphology does not predict phylogenetic relatedness.
Indeed genera with very different flower shapes are often very closely related (Luetzelburgia and Vatairea and genera with highly similar flowers share such similarity via convergent evolution (Vatairea and Vataireopsis).
For these plants other morphological characteristics may indicate relationships more reliably. Floral traits are apparently more prone to rapid evolutionary changes in response to local ecological conditions Cardoso said
the flowers might just be fooling us. Story Source: The above story is provided based on materials by American Journal of Botany.
Recollecting 26 spring-blooming flowers from Robertson's network Knight Phd professor of biology at Washington University
Half the bee species associated with these flowers in Robertson's lifetime had disappeared some pollinators were active before their plants had bloomed plants weren't visited as often
Robertson's astonishing legacya professor of biology and Greek at Blackburn College in Carlinville Illinois Charles Robertson collected flower-visiting insects near Carlinville between 1887 and 1916.
Robertson's meticulous database is probably the oldest of its type for flower-visiting insects.
i. d. tags and his privately published book Flowers and Insects. How Robertson's network is studied doingrobertson it all Knight said.
If any community is going to be affected by climate change Knight said it would be this one because the plants flower soon after the winter snow melts.
The flowers were in bloom eight fewer days on average and the insects flew for 22.5 fewer days.
Robertson didn't keep track of how much time he spent in the field watching each flower
Comparing the visitation rates we measured to Marlin's we discovered that the bees were making fewer trips to the flowers than they had in the 1970s.
Since these were all the same species of bee caught off the same flower the default assumption was that they'd be covered in much the same pollen.
because their flowers are pollinated not adequately says Harder. We also show that adding more honey bees often does not fix this problem
Flowers of most crops need to receive pollen before making seeds and fruits a process that is enhanced by insects that visit flowers.
These pollinators including bees flies butterflies and beetles usually live in natural or semi-natural habitats such as the edges of forests hedgerows or grasslands.
The study found that the proportion of flowers producing fruits was considerably lower in sites with fewer wild insects visiting crop flowers.
In fact Z. mays was the second most common pollen found in the total of all samples behind only pollen from cattails which have wind-pollinated flowers.
and distinguish electric signals given out by flowers. Flowers often produce bright colours patterns and enticing fragrances to attract their pollinators.
Researchers at Bristol's School of Biological sciences led by Professor Daniel Robert found that flowers also have their equivalent of a neon sign--patterns of electrical signals that can communicate information to the insect pollinator.
These electrical signals can work in concert with the flower's other attractive signals and enhance floral advertising Power plants are charged usually negatively
and emit weak electric fields. On their side bees acquire a positive charge as they fly through the air.
No spark is produced as a charged bee approaches a charged flower but a small electric force builds up that can potentially convey information.
when a bee lands the flower's potential changes and remains so for several minutes.
which flowers tell bees another bee has recently been visiting? To their surprise the researchers discovered that bumblebees can detect
The discovery of such electric detection has opened up a whole new understanding of insect perception and flower communication.
This novel communication channel reveals how flowers can potentially inform their pollinators about the honest status of their precious nectar and pollen reserves.
The last thing a flower wants is to attract a bee and then fail to provide nectar:
and would soon lose interest in such an unrewarding flower. The co-evolution between flowers and bees has a long and beneficial history so perhaps it's not entirely surprising that we are still discovering today how remarkably sophisticated their communication is.
The research was supported by the Leverhulme Trust. Story Source: The above story is provided based on materials by University of Bristol.
when looking for nectarflower colors that contrast with their background are more important to foraging bees than patterns of colored veins on pale flowers according to new research by Heather Whitney from the University of Cambridge in the UK and her colleagues.
Their observation of how patterns of pigmentation on flower petals influence bumblebees'behavior suggests that color veins give clues to the location of the nectar.
however that bees have an innate preference for striped flowers. The work is published online in Springer's journal Naturwissenschaften--The Science of Nature.
Very few flowers are a simple block of a single color. Patterns of pigmentation include color patterns within a petal or different colors on different petals.
and are attracted sometimes to patterned flowers over plain flowers. These patterns can increase the speed with
which bees locate the nectar reward in a flower. Venation patterns--or lines of color on flower petals--are common in Antirrhinum flowers commonly known as snapdragons.
The authors looked at the ways in which these color veins influence bumblebee foraging behavior.
They exposed bees who had seen not flowers before to veined ivory and red types of snapdragon flowers.
and veined flowers and which type of flower they preferred when they were looking for nectar.
From the bees'perspective red flowers reflected little light while red veins on ivory flowers slightly changed the color of the flower.
however had the most effect as it contrasted with the brown background more than the red flowers did.
and veined flowers but showed no preference for one or the other. In contrast both ivory and veined flowers were significantly more popular than red flowers.
The authors conclude: Venation patterns might be prevalent in nature because they can be useful nectar guides particularly
when they also increase flower visibility. But it appears that the color contrast of a flower with its background has a greater influence on bee preference.
Story Source: The above story is provided based on materials by Springer Science+Business Media. Note: Materials may be edited for content and length.
When prompted by genetic signals cells in the meristem develop into the plant's organs--leaves and flowers for instance.
Our simple hypothesis was that an increase in the size of the inflorescence meristem--the stem-cell reservoir that gives rise to flowers
In corn reproduction male flowers at the top of the plants distribute pollen grains two at a time through individual tubes to tiny cobs on the stalks covered by strands known as silks in a process known as double fertilization.
#24 new species of flower fly have been found in Central and Southern Americaa team of scientists have described twenty four new species of dipterans belonging to Quichuana genus of which only a further 24 species were known.
A ten-year study in forests of the American continent has resulted in the description of 24 new insect species from the Quichuana genus that are also known as'flower flies'.
#In the eastern U s.,spring flowers keep pace with warming climate, blooming up to a month earlierusing the meticulous phenological records of two iconic American naturalists Henry David Thoreau and Aldo Leopold scientists have demonstrated that native plants in the eastern
In 1942 Leopold's notes show the woodland wildflower bloodroot blooming on April 12. In 2012 bloodroot was observed first blossoming March 17.
and bud-like shape that have brought it Internet buzz as a Martian flower. Other rocks nearby are siltstone with grains finer than powdered sugar.
and a small magnetic kaolinite stone naturally eroded into an unusual shape similar to a flower.
Firstly they found that honey bees preferred to visit flowers in the top parts of the almond trees.
During high winds the wild bees were observed still visiting almond flowers. Wild pollinators can therefore help sustain pollination service under extreme weather conditions when the service by honey bees declines.
This is particularly important in almond as it flowers early in the year when the weather conditions can be unfavourable for bee flight.
However our method is only likely to deliver success as long as the flowers of the plant in question play no significant role--sugar beet for instance.
Nature's ability to create iridescent flowers has been recreated by mathematicians at The University of Nottingham.
Iridescence in flowers may act as a signal to pollinators such as bumblebees which are crucial to crop production.
Flowers and the animals that pollinate plants interact at the petal surface. The surfaces of many petals have produced regular patterns from folds of the waterproof cuticle layer that covers all plant surfaces.
and can learn to use this signal as a cue to identify rewarding flowers. The research has been published in the Journal of The Royal Society Interface.
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