hdl:10101/npre.2008.1824.1
2 votes
The unique mouse pollination in an orchid species
Correspondence: (Login to view email address)
- Biological Sciences Department, Shaanxi University of Technology
- Wuhan Botanical Garden, The Chinese Academy of Sciences
- College of Horticulture and Landscape Architecture, Southwest University, China
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- Document Type:
- Manuscript
- Date:
- Received 22 April 2008 05:12 UTC; Posted 22 April 2008
- Subjects:
- Ecology, Evolutionary Biology
- Abstract:
The Chinese orchid, Cymbidium serratum, is pollinated by the wild mountain mouse Rattus fulvescens. The flowers use both odor and colour as attractants, and provide labellum as food reward for the pollinators. The mice pollinate the flowers during their endeavour to eat the labellums.
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2 votes
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2 comments
Thank you, Andrea. Your comments are very helpful to me. I agree with you that pollinia sticking to fur is the key in the process.
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- This document is licensed to the public under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License
- How to cite this document:
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Wang, Yong, Zhang, Yang, Ma, Xiao-Kai, and Dong, Li. The unique mouse pollination in an orchid species. Available from Nature Precedings <http://hdl.handle.net/10101/npre.2008.1824.1> (2008)
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Andrea Cocucci on 12 May 2009 17:39 UTC
Your study is very exiting. To my knowledge, this is the only orchid pollinated by mammals, which I think is very interesting since there are so many plants that have adapted to pollination to this animals, particularly to bats. The question arises, why have orchids so rarely adapted to mammals when they could adapt in the most diverse ways to so many different animals? Is there something special about mammals that make them orchids difficult to adapt to? Is it the lack of suitable hairless parts for pollinia to get attached? What does Cymbidium serratum have that can stick its pollinia to the fury skin of the mice?
Also, I would like you to notice that in the correct citation of our paper of 1998 is:
Cocucci, A. A. & Sérsic, A. N. 1998. Evidence of rodent pollination in Cajophora coronata (Loasaceae). Plant Syst. Evol. 211: 113-128.
Sincerely,
Andrea Cocucci