The driest place on the planet is the desert of the western coast of South America. There are some weather stations that have never recorded rain. Many species live here that are adapted to its extreme conditions.
The "desierto florido" is one of the most spectacular sights of the natural world from September to November. The mass blooms, one of which is currently going on in the northern Atacama, attract media attention from all over the world.
During desiertos floridos, there are many colors and shapes of flowers. The subject of a new study in the field of ecology and evolution is how bees and hymenopterans perceive all the different things.
The aim was to shed light on the mechanisms that cause biological diversity in extreme environments.
The flowers of the pussypaw Cistanthe longiscapa, a representative species for desiertos floridos in the Atacama desert, are variable in color and pattern. The flower petals contain different types ofbetalain.
The model species is not the same as the real thing.
There was a desierto florido event in late 2021. It was visible to satellites even though it was small.
An annual plant up to 20 cm high, which bloomed in two separate patches tens of km apart, was the dominant species. The patches were uniformly purple and yellow. The purple and yellow flowers of the same species are heritable and can interbreed.
As insects look at flowers,visualizing them.
The insects see the world differently than we do. Most hymenopterans have three types of photoreceptors that are sensitive to UV, blue, and green.
The reflection, absorption, and transmission of different wavelengths by the petals of a total of 112 purple, yellow, red, pink, and white flowers were measured using cameras sensitive to visible light and UV and spectrometers. They were able to create images of these variations as seen by their many species of pollination.
Human eyes don't see diversity.
The results show that the diversity of the plant was more than what we had. The hymenopterans can easily distinguish between red, purple, white, and yellow variations. They can tell the difference between yellow and purple flowers. The UV "bullseye pattern" at the heart of some flowers is not visible to us.
There are two exceptions, one of which is pink and the other of which is red and appears similar to hymenopterans.
The plant order Caryophyllales to which the pussypaws belong has differences in the colors of the betalains that make up the flowers. They also protect from salt stress and damage from oxygen radicals in the environment, which is beneficial in deserts.
There is a drive selection for new models.
The authors theorize that the observed standing diversity is due to differences in sensitivity and preference for different colors and patterns among many species of pollinators.
If different species of pollinating insects prefer certain flower colors and patterns, they could cause the variation in flower color within C. longisca to become reproductively isolated from other individuals of the same plant species. The process could eventually lead to the creation of new races.
In our next studies, we will look at the chemical identity and the biological pathways of the flowers, as well as their relationship to the scent produced by the flowers. This should help us understand their role in shaping the interactions between plants and their pollinators and in the plants' tolerance to biotic and abiotic stressors.
More information: Mechanisms of flower coloring and eco-evolutionary implications of massive blooming events in the Atacama Desert, Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution(2022). DOI: 10.3389/fevo.2022.957318 Journal information: Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution
All Rights Reserved © 2024
