Color preference flexibility of butterflies in two co-occurring mock verbains under different pollination contexts

DREWNIAK, M. E.; IMHOF, L.; ZAPATA, A. I.; COCUCCI, A.; BECCACECE, H. M.; MORÉ, M.

Londres

Congreso; Animal Behaviour Live 2020; 2020

Pollinators' feeding behavior has direct consequences for plant reproduction and can mediate the evolution of floral traits such as corolla color. Some pollinators show strong innate color preferences, but many others show flexibility in their preferences due to learning associations between corolla color and rewards and/or variable color perception. Besides, some pollinators exhibit strong floral constancy restricting their flower visits to a single plant species, avoiding alternative rewarding flowers present in the community. Thus, studying the dynamics of pollinators´ behavior under natural field conditions is important to understand how plant-pollinator interactions occur. We studied two co-occurring Glandularia species (Fam. Verbenaceae) from southern South America that differ in corolla color (red vs purple) which are mostly pollinated by diurnal butterflies. We recorded the visitation rate of the pollinator assemblage in these two mock verbains species and in a less abundant pink-flowered natural hybrid under two different pollination contexts (natural community vs. controlled experimental plots). First, we analyzed the interaction between the mock verbains and their pollinator assemblage using an interaction network approach under a null expectation of random visitation. We recorded a pollinator assemblage of 15 butterfly species from three families (Papilionidae, Nymphalidae and Hesperiidae) that showed visitation rates higher, lower or no different from a random expectation taking into account species abundances. Observed trends were mostly congruent between pollination contexts. Second, we evaluated the floral constancy (i.e. when transition between consecutive visits were to the same flower color) of butterfly species by recording individual visitation sequence in the experimental plots. In general, most species showed a strong to moderate constancy, with five species being mainly constant to red, six species to purple and four species to pink. Interestingly, none butterfly species visited the pink-flowered hybrid in the natural community. The possible causes of our findings are discussed.