| Title: | Volatile and Semi-Volatile Organic Compounds May Help Reduce Pollinator-Prey Overlap in the Carnivorous Plant Drosophyllum lusitanicum (Drosophyllaceae) |
| Author(s): | Ojeda F; Carrera C; Paniw M; Garcia-Moreno L; Barbero GF; Palma M; |
| Address: | "Departamento de Biologia-IVAGRO, Universidad de Cadiz, Campus Rio San Pedro, 11510, Puerto Real, Spain. fernando.ojeda@uca.es. Departamento de Quimica Analitica-IVAGRO, Universidad de Cadiz, Campus Rio San Pedro, 11510, Puerto Real, Spain. Ecological and Forestry Applications Research Centre (CREAF), Campus de Bellaterra (UAB) Edifici C, ES-08193, Cerdanyola del Valles, Spain" |
| DOI: | 10.1007/s10886-020-01235-w |
| ISSN/ISBN: | 1573-1561 (Electronic) 0098-0331 (Linking) |
| Abstract: | "Most carnivorous plants show a conspicuous separation between flowers and leaf-traps, which has been interpreted as an adaptive response to minimize pollinator-prey conflicts which will reduce fitness. Here, we used the carnivorous subshrub Drosophyllum lusitanicum (Drosophyllaceae) to explore if and how carnivorous plants with minimal physical separation of flower and trap avoid or reduce a likely conflict of pollinator and prey. We carried out an extensive field survey in the Aljibe Mountains, at the European side of the Strait of Gibraltar, of pollinating and prey insects of D. lusitanicum. We also performed a detailed analysis of flower and leaf volatile and semi-volatile organic compounds (VOCs and SVOCs, respectively) by direct thermal desorption-gas chromatography/mass spectrometry (TD-GC/MS) to ascertain whether this species shows different VOC/SVOC profiles in flowers and leaf-traps that might attract pollinators and prey, respectively. Our results show a low overlap between pollinator and prey groups as well as clear differences in the relative abundance of VOCs and SVOCs between flowers and leaf-traps. Coleopterans and hymenopterans were the most represented groups of floral visitors, whereas dipterans were the most diverse group of prey insects. Regarding VOCs and SVOCs, while aldehydes and carboxylic acids presented higher relative contents in leaf-traps, alkanes and plumbagin were the main VOC/SVOC compounds detected in flowers. We conclude that D. lusitanicum, despite its minimal flower-trap separation, does not seem to present a marked pollinator-prey conflict. Differences in the VOCs and SVOCs produced by flowers and leaf-traps may help explain the conspicuous differences between pollinator and prey guilds" |
| Keywords: | Animals Carnivorous Plant/*chemistry/physiology Flowers/chemistry *Insecta Plant Leaves/chemistry Plant Mucilage/chemistry *Pollination Volatile Organic Compounds/*analysis Adhesive leaf trap Drosophyllum lusitanicum Insect census Pollinator-prey conflict; |
| Notes: | "MedlineOjeda, Fernando Carrera, Ceferino Paniw, Maria Garcia-Moreno, Luis Barbero, Gerardo F Palma, Miguel eng CGL2015-64007-P/Ministerio de Economia, Industria y Competitividad, Gobierno de Espana/ Comparative Study 2021/01/09 J Chem Ecol. 2021 Jan; 47(1):73-86. doi: 10.1007/s10886-020-01235-w. Epub 2021 Jan 8" |
