Volume 19, Issue 11, Pages (June 2009)

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1 Volume 19, Issue 11, Pages 919-923 (June 2009)
Bidirectional Flower Color and Shape Changes Allow a Second Opportunity for Pollination  Pat Willmer, Dara A. Stanley, Karin Steijven, Iain M. Matthews, Clive V. Nuttman  Current Biology  Volume 19, Issue 11, Pages (June 2009) DOI: /j.cub Copyright © 2009 Elsevier Ltd Terms and Conditions

2 Figure 1 Photographs of Desmodium setigerum Flowers Showing the Key Phases Identified (A) Upper left: open but untripped (L) flower. Lower left: flower with white flag depressed over reproductive organs and turquoise keel (WT). Middle right: flower reopening with some recurrence of lilac color (WTO). (B) Open and tripped lilac flowers (LV), with plentiful pollen visible on the right stigma and little on the left stigma. (C) Two reopening WTO flowers, the left flower substantially lilac, plus three WT flowers from the same day, already wilting. (D) Two WTO flowers in close-up, showing access to re-exposed stigma (with little pollen visible) and anthers, turquoise/lilac keel, and white/turquoise flag. A brief phase of pale lilac (PLV, not shown) occurred after visitation but before the transition to WT. Photographs were taken at 1205, 0910, 1117, and 1145, respectively. Current Biology  , DOI: ( /j.cub ) Copyright © 2009 Elsevier Ltd Terms and Conditions

3 Figure 2 Time to Complete the Main Color Change in Desmodium setigerum Flowers after Natural Visitation and Varying Artificial Treatments Values are means ± SEM; n = 18 for all groups except naturally visited, where n = 53. Untripped flowers were protected with fine muslin to prevent visitation. Time to complete color change varied significantly among pollen treatments (one-way ANOVA: F5,107 = , p < 0.001). Only the untripped flowers took significantly longer (Tukey's post hoc test), remaining unchanged 10 hr after opening and finally changing color overnight. Current Biology  , DOI: ( /j.cub ) Copyright © 2009 Elsevier Ltd Terms and Conditions

4 Figure 3 Patterns of Color Change in Desmodium setigerum Flowers
Data are averaged from 9 days of observation for a total of 117 flowers. L, lilac, untripped; LV, lilac, visited/tripped; PLV, pale lilac, tripped; WT, white flag over turquoise keel, flower closed; WTO, white/turquoise flag over turquoise/lilac keel, flower partially reopened. Current Biology  , DOI: ( /j.cub ) Copyright © 2009 Elsevier Ltd Terms and Conditions

5 Figure 4 Morphological Changes in Flower Opening
Angle between back of keel and back of flag (white bars) and angle of corolla opening (between upper side of keel and underside of flag) (black bars), in degrees, for the five color phases shown in Figure 3. WT floral organs are therefore inaccessible to visitors, but the keel lifts in the WTO phase to restore access. Values are means ± SEM; sample sizes are given in parentheses with x axis labels. Current Biology  , DOI: ( /j.cub ) Copyright © 2009 Elsevier Ltd Terms and Conditions

6 Figure 5 Visitation to Different Flower Phases
(A) Untripped flowers (n = 100) received significantly more visits than tripped flowers (n = 115) (χ2 = , degrees of freedom = 1, p < 0.001), although the latter were approached more often. The visitors distinguished flower status close up, approaching to within 10 mm of a tripped flower but not subsequently landing. Data are presented as means ± SEM. (B) Visits by bees were greatly skewed to flowers in the lilac color phase; other insects did not discriminate between colors. (C) Bee visits predominated in the morning, but other visitors were more common in the afternoon (when they were more likely to encounter white/turquoise flowers). Current Biology  , DOI: ( /j.cub ) Copyright © 2009 Elsevier Ltd Terms and Conditions