Meeting Abstract
P1.29 Saturday, Jan. 4 15:30 Comparison of bee visitation on blue and white-pale pink morphs of Vitex agnus-castus in Lesvos, Greece PASCUAL, C.J.*; BOWER, C.; BURROWS, S.; LEVINSON, B.; POLK, T.; BLATZHEIM, L.; GONZALEZ, V.H.; BARTHELL, J.F.; PETANIDOU, T.; Univ. of Maryland, College Park; Bloomsburg Univ. of Pennsylvania; Utah State Univ.; Univ. of California, San Diego; Southwestern Nazarene Univ.; Southwestern Oklahoma State Univ.; Southwestern Oklahoma State Univ.; Univ. of Central Oklahoma; Univ. of the Aegean, Lesvos, GREECE cam.pascl@gmail.com
At least five distinct color morphs have been identified of Vitex agnus-castus, a lilac bush native to the Mediterranean region. In this study, relatively uniformly-colored bushes of V. agnus-castus were categorized into two visually distinct groups and studied: white-pale pink and blue. Both the overall bee visitation rates (Wilke’s Lambda = 0.139, F3,6=12.44, P=0.006) and the peak visitation times differed between the two morphs. The white-pale pink morphs received slightly higher visitation rates at all time intervals, although this was not significant at most sample intervals. There was a visitation time by flower interaction where visitation peaked on the blue morphs at 12:00 hours (F2,8=2.534, P=0.140) and on white-pale pink morphs at 14:00 hours (F2,8=5.883, P=0.027). The number of pollinator species did not differ between the blue and white-pale pink morphs (F1,3=1.02, P=0.698). Higher nectar quality should increase floral attractiveness for bees, and higher nectar volume could suggest that the bushes produce more nectar and can thus support a greater number of pollinators. We studied these two characteristics of nectar in both morphs. The nectar volume of the white-pale pink morphs were not significantly lower than the blue (F1,3=0.64, P=0.792), and the nectar quality of the blue and white-pale pink inflorescences did not differ significantly either (F1,4=0.91, P=0.723). These findings suggest that factors other than nectar are influencing different bee visitation patterns between the two morphs.
