nectar guide

Examples of nectar guide in the following topics:

• Pollination by Insects

  • They visit flowers that are open during the day, are brightly colored, have a strong aroma or scent, and have a tubular shape, typically with the presence of a nectar guide.
  • A nectar guide includes regions on the flower petals that are visible only to bees, which help guide bees to the center of the flower, thus making the pollination process more efficient.
  • The nectar provides energy while the pollen provides protein.
  • These flowers are brightly colored, have a strong fragrance, are open during the day, and have nectar guides.
  • A corn earworm (a moth) sips nectar from a night-blooming Gaura plant.

• Light

  • For example, bees see near-ultraviolet light in order to locate nectar guides on flowers.

• Pollination by Bats, Birds, Wind, and Water

  • The flowers have a strong, fruity, or musky fragrance and produce large amounts of nectar.
  • As the bats seek the nectar, their faces and heads become covered with pollen, which is then transferred to the next flower.
  • As a bird seeks energy-rich nectar, pollen is deposited on the bird's head and neck and is then transferred to the next flower it visits.
  • Unlike the typical insect-pollinated flowers, flowers adapted to pollination by wind do not produce nectar or scent.
  • Flowers often attract pollinators with food rewards, in the form of nectar.

• Herbivory and Pollination

  • Many bird or insect-pollinated flowers secrete nectar, a sugary liquid.
  • Flowers that attract these pollinators usually display a pattern of low ultraviolet reflectance that helps them quickly locate the flower's center to collect nectar while being dusted with pollen .
  • As a bee collects nectar from a flower, it is dusted by pollen, which it then disperses to other flowers.

• Pollination and Fertilization

  • This method of pollination does not require an investment from the plant to provide nectar and pollen as food for pollinators.
  • This allows insects to easily cross-pollinate while seeking nectar at the pollen tube.

• Allopatric Speciation

  • The nectar-eating birds have long beaks to dip into flowers to reach the nectar.

• Organismal Ecology and Population Ecology

  • The adult butterflies feed on the nectar of flowers of wild lupine and other plant species.

• Evolution of Gymnosperms

  • The scorpionflies probably engaged in pollination mutualisms with gymnosperms, long before the similar and independent coevolution of nectar-feeding insects on angiosperms.

• Herbivores, Omnivores, and Carnivores

  • Herbivores can be further classified into frugivores (fruit-eaters), granivores (seed eaters), nectivores (nectar feeders), and folivores (leaf eaters).

• Reproductive Isolation

  • The tunnel through which an animal must access nectar can vary in length and diameter, which prevents the plant from being cross-pollinated with a different species .