Annals of Botany🎉Good news! The new paper ‘Drought stress influences foraging preference of a solitary bee on two wildflowers’ in @AnnBot by Annika Rose-Person and co-authors is now #free for a limited time. (1/7)
🌸🐝Pollinators are crucial for biodiversity and global food production. But drought, worsened by climate change, can affect plants and pollinators alike. (2/7)
Authors grew 2 wildflowers in greenhouse under water stress to mimic drought & measured flower size, display size, nectar volume, and nectar sugar concentration. They observed how Osmia lignaria bees chose between droughted and non-droughted plants in controlled foraging arenas. (3/7)
They found Phacelia campanularia is more drought-tolerant than Nemophila menziesii and that droughted plants had smaller flowers and floral displays, and produced less, but more concentrated nectar. (4/7)
Bees preferred non-droughted Nemophila flowers. Preference for non-droughted Phacelia flowers was seen only in the afternoon, not in the morning. (5/7)
Bees favor healthier, non-droughted flowers, potentially reducing pollination for drought-stressed plants. Morning indifference to Phacelia suggests its higher drought tolerance affects bee behavior. (6/7)
🌎 Understanding these dynamics is key to predicting and mitigating the impacts of climate change on plant-pollinator relationships and ecosystem health. (7/7)
#ClimateChange #Pollinators #Ecology #Drought #PlantScience #BeeConservation