Master's Thesis Defense Seminar

Most flowering plants have an exceptionally long evolutionary history with flying insects. Although plants can detect and respond to vibration, little research has investigated their ability to use the vibrational cues produced by pollinating insects, illustrating a potentially substantial gap in our understanding of plant-pollinator interactions. Earlier work found that flowers exposed to bee wingbeats produced more concentrated nectar, but this work used a non-native pollinator, measured concentration rather than total sugar, and relied on non-replicable playback designs.

In this study, we used controlled playbacks of simulated Bombus terrestris wingbeats to test whether Borago officinalis responds to the wingbeats of a native pollinator by increasing the amount of sugar in its nectar. We measured total nectar sugar mass in flowers of a known age. Flowers exposed to wingbeat playbacks contained about 23% more nectar sugar than silent controls (P = .02; 95% CI = 4-45%), a proportional increase that held across flower ages. This gain amounts to roughly 5 J of additional energy per flower, thus providing a meaningful energetic benefit to a pollinating bumblebee. These results expand our understanding of plants’ ability to respond to vibrational cues from pollinating insects and open new directions for investigating how sound-induced nectar changes alter the plant-pollinator relationship and plant fitness. 

Committee Members

Dr. Rex Cocroft
Dr. Debbie Finke
Dr. Allison Roth