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Pollination

Sunbird surprise for syndromes

Nature volume 394, pages 726–727 (1998)Cite this article

Pollination syndromes are suites of flower characteristics (morphology, colour, nectar and odour) that supposedly attract particular pollinators to specific flowers, and allow them to forage at the exclusion of ‘illegitimate’ visitors that would take the floral reward without executing pollination1,3. This idea is superficially tidy, and it appeals to the classifying minds of many biologists. Indeed, some authors have used this concept to infer the pollinators of species even without field data and then to draw far-reaching conclusions about the historical ecology and evolution of such relationships4.

But there are problems associated with the syndrome approach. First of all, most flowering plants are pollinated by a wide taxonomic range of pollinators5, and cannot be shoehorned into neat syndromes. Second, the jaw-cracking terminology of the syndrome concept is often imprecise and confusing. For instance, the luridly coloured, foul-smelling flowers associated with ‘sapromyiophily’ (literally, flowers that mimic decaying organic material and are ‘loved’ by flies) are often beetle pollinated. An example is the now famous Amorphophallus titanum6, one of which flowered this June at Miami's Fairchild Tropical Garden. Finally, and surprisingly (given their wide acceptance), the predictive value of pollination syndromes has never really been tested — there has been little attempt to use these descriptions as hypotheses to verify the usefulness of floral characteristics in predicting what might pollinate a particular plant. The syndrome of ‘ornithophily’ (bird pollination), for example, is typified by tubular, red, scentless flowers. Although many ornithophilous flowers fit this description, many do not; hummingbirds, for instance, can visit a range of flowers, regardless of morphology or colour7.

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Figure 1: Probing for pollen — the lesser double-collared sunbird Nectarinia chalybea.

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References

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  1. School of Environmental Science, Nene-University College Northampton, Park Campus, Northampton, NN2 7AL, UK

    Jeff Ollerton

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Ollerton, J. Sunbird surprise for syndromes. Nature 394, 726–727 (1998). https://doi.org/10.1038/29409

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