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Flower Mimics Dead Insects' Odor To Trap Pollinator Flies

EnolaGaia

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The famous 'corpse flower' mimics the smell of rotting vertebrate carrion to attract insects that can carry and disseminate its pollen.

This newly discovered flower employs the same trickery, but using the odor of dead insects.
Newly discovered flower mimics the smell of rotting insects to trap coffin flies

Scientists have uncovered the deceptive pollination tactics of a first-of-its-kind flower that mimics the scent of decaying insects to attract and entrap so-called coffin flies.

Flies from the genus Megaselia don't like to eat rotting flesh -- instead, they mate atop and lay their eggs inside decaying insect corpses. ...

... [The] flower Aristolochia microstoma -- described Friday in the journal Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution -- evolved foul-smelling flowers.

The novel flower isn't carnivorous, though. Rather, it traps flies to utilize their pollination services. ...

Once trapped inside the putrid scented petals, the coffin flies pollinate the female organs before being coated in pollen by the male organs. ...

"Our results suggest that this is the first known case of a flower that tricks pollinators by smelling like dead and rotting insects rather than vertebrate carrion" ...

A small minority of plants -- 4 to 6 percent -- are pollinated under false pretenses, using appearance or scent to advertise an absent award to pollinators.

Many orchids use deceptive pollination, as do many members of the genus Aristolochia. ...

Small hairs inside the petals of Aristolochia flowers guide trapped insects toward the sexual organs. On their way down, pollen from the insect is deposited onto the female organs.

The presence of the trapped insect causes the stamen to ripen and release pollen to be carried elsewhere. After pollination, the hairs whither and the insect can escape. ...
FULL STORY: https://www.upi.com/Science_News/20...-flowers-deceptive-pollination/6451621623119/
 
Here are the bibliographic details and abstract for the published research report. The full report is accessible at the link below.

Rupp T, Oelschlägel B, Rabitsch K, Mahfoud H, Wenke T, Disney RHL, Neinhuis C, Wanke S and Dötterl S (2021)
Flowers of Deceptive Aristolochia microstoma Are Pollinated by Phorid Flies and Emit Volatiles Known From Invertebrate Carrion.
Front. Ecol. Evol. 9:658441.
doi: 10.3389/fevo.2021.658441

Deceptive flowers decoy pollinators by advertising a reward, which finally is not provided. Numerous deceptive plants are pollinated by Diptera, but the attractive cues and deceptive strategies are only identified in a few cases. A typical fly-deceptive plant genus is Aristolochia, which evolved sophisticated trap flowers to temporarily capture pollinators. Though rarely demonstrated by experimental approaches, Aristolochia species are believed to chemically mimic brood sites, food sources for adult flies, or utilize sexual deception. Indeed, for most species, studies on scent composition and attractive signals are lacking. In this study, we focused on Aristolochia microstoma, a peculiar Greek endemic with flowers that are presented at ground level in the leaf litter or between rocks and are characterized by a unique morphology. We analyzed flower visitor and pollinator spectra and identified the floral scent composition using dynamic headspace and gas chromatography coupled to mass spectrometry (GC/MS). Female and male phorid flies (Phoridae) are the exclusive pollinators, although the flowers are also frequently visited by Sciaridae, as well as typical ground-dwelling arthropods, such as Collembola and arachnids. The carrion-like floral scent mainly consists of the oligosulphide dimethyldisulfide and the nitrogen-bearing compound 2,5-dimethylpyrazine. These compounds together are known to be released from decomposing insects, and thus, we conclude that pollinators are likely deceived by chemical imitation of invertebrate carrion, a deceptive strategy not described from another plant species so far.

SOURCE & FULL REPORT: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fevo.2021.658441/full
 
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