Floral traits, pollination syndromes, and nectar resources in tropical plants of Western Ghats
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.11609/jott.9755.17.10.27637-27650Keywords:
Biodiversity hotspot, floral visitor diversity, flower colour, flower shape, pollinators, standing nectar crop, northern Western GhatsAbstract
Tropical regions are known to have a high percentage of animal-pollinated plants. This study explores the natural history of pollination in an understudied biodiversity hotspot, the tropical forests of India’s Western Ghats. It is the first-ever attempt to gain insights into three critical aspects of pollination simultaneously, i.e., pollination syndromes, floral visitors, and standing nectar crop. Data on the attributes of floral visitors of 62 plant species were collected through regular field visits for three years allowing for sampling across seasons. ‘Tube’ was the most dominant flower type (20) followed by ‘Dish to bowl’ with 18 species, ‘Brush or Head’ (13), and ‘Gullet’ with nine species. The range of nectar quantity per flower varied from 0.05–13.7 μL. Nearly 40 percent of plant species observed by us have only Lepidopteran visitors. Fifteen plant species were visited by hymenopterans and lepidopterans, whereas five plant species had hymenopteran visitors only. In the light of rapidly declining pollinator diversity, our study highlights the significance of floral visitors in the pollination of some conservation-significant species, as well as points to determinants of floral visitation and success.
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Copyright (c) 2025 Ankur Patwardhan, Medhavi Tadwalkar, Amruta Joglekar, Mrunalini Sonne, Vivek Pawar, Pratiksha Mestry, Shivani Kulkarni, Akanksha Kashikar, Tejaswini Pachpor
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