Daily and seasonal interactions between salmonberry (Rubus spectabilis) and bumblebees (Bombus sitkensis) in southwestern British Columbia
Creators: name: Steinhoff, Gordon
Publisher: name: University of British Columbia
Year: 2010

description: My study was designed to answer two main questions: 1. ) Do the bees, through their foraging behavior, alter the rates of salmonberry nectar productivity? 2. ) Do the plants, through their rates of nectar secretion, alter the foraging behavior of the bees? Since there are well-documented examples of morphological coadaptations between plants and their pollinators, it was reasonable to suppose that physiological/behavioral coadaptations exist as well. Thus I hypothesized that the above questions would be answered in the affirmative. Though the two questions have been individually studied by several biologists, I felt it important to examine the possible reciprocal responses of plants and pollinators as they occur in a natural community context. Nectar productivity of salmonberry flowers (Rubus spectabilis, Pursh) was investigated using flowers isolated for various lengths of time from insect visitors. Nectar volumes were extracted using micropipettes and sugar concentrations were determined with a hand refractometer. Volumes and sugar concentrations were then used to calculate calories/hour. Nectar standing crop (calories/flower) was similarly derived using untagged flowers. During the study I monitored temperature, sunshine levels, relative humidity, date of sampling, time of sampling, and the androecium diameters of all flowers sampled. It was found that an increase in experimental extraction rate brought about a corresponding decrease in productivity. This result is opposite to that reported by other authors, yet it was found that this result was not due to flower damage or to artificial fertilization of flowers. This flower response to simulated visitation frequency may be of competitive advantage to flowers not being used by pollinators present in the area, Productivity and nectar standing crop decreased as the salmonberry flowering season progressed, and decreased throughout the course of each day as relative humidity fell and air temperatures increased. This decline in productivity reflected decreases in volumes of nectar secreted, though sugar concentrations increased with increasing sunshine levels. Younger flowers apparently secreted calories/hour at higher rates than older flowers, this again reflecting trends in volumes of nectar secreted. In each sample of ten flowers, there were four which secreted at rates significantly higher than the remaining six. Further, the four most productive flowers secreted at more predictable rates in trends of the environmental variables monitored during the study. Throughout the season there was a dramatic increase of .bumblebees (Bombus sitkensis, Nylander) observed at patches of salmonberry flowers. Throughout each day, the bees increased in density as sunshine levels and temperatures increased and relative humidity fell. The bees foraged from the more productive younger flowers more frequently than older flowers, and increasingly foraged from older flowers as nectar abundance in all flowers declined through the day and season. In addition, they may also have been avoiding increasing numbers of flowers they approached, though this conclusion must remain tentative. Bumblebee behavior was more predictable during the early morning hours of each day as opposed to hours in the afternoon. It is postulated that, this was because bumblebees experience more uniform energy conditions in the morning. Based on the distribution curves of nectar resources and bee density, it is postulated that plants compete for pollinators early in the day and early in the season, while bees compete for nectar later in the day and later in the season. This hypothesis is further supported by observations on the shifts in bee foraging behaviors.