Does the floral bat lure dimethyl disulphide attract thailand’s most common bat pollinator?

by Gerald Carter & Alyssa Stewart

The dawn bat, or cave nectar bat

(photo credit: A. Stewart)

In the late 1990s, researchers discovered that in Central and South American flowers that were pollinated by bats often contained the chemical compound, dimethyl disulphide (DMDS). This compound smells foul to humans (DMDS is produced by rotting flesh) but it attracts nectar-feeding bats. Even captive-borne bats that have never fed from flowers or smelled DMDS, are powerfully attracted to it. 

Read the whole summary in: English or Thai!
Read the scientific publication in JPE.

A global review of pollination syndromes: A response to Ollerton et al. 2015

by Ramiro Aguilar et al.

Hummingbird pollinated Kohleria spicata (Gesneriaceae)

In a recent study, we demonstrated that the evolution of floral traits is driven by adaptation to the most effective pollinators (Rosas-Guerrero V, Aguilar R, Marten-Rodriguez S, Ashworth L, Lopezaraiza-Mikel M, Bastida JM, Quesada M. 2014. A quantitative review of pollination syndromes: do floral traits predict effective pollinators? Ecology Letters 17: 388–400). We also showed that the predictability of pollination syndromes is greater in pollinator-dependent species and in plants from tropical regions. Many plant species also have secondary pollinators that often correspond to the ancestral pollinators documented in evolutionary studies.

Read the whole summary in: English.
Read the scientific publication in JPE.