Investigating the impacts of soil quality on floral color and pollinator perception
Loading...
Date
2020-05
Authors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
The Ohio State University
Abstract
Prairies are vital ecosystems that have declined to 1% of their original landcover in the United States over the past 150 years. To conserve these endangered habitats, practitioners have established prairies on land previously used for surfacing mining. The soil quality of these prairies varies widely depending on how the land was reclaimed and revegetated following mining. Differences in soil quality can alter plants' physical traits, but little is known about the impacts of soil quality on plant-pollinator interactions. The objective of this study was to determine if reclamation technique affects the floral optics (reflectance, luminance, pattern) and pollinator perception of floral resources. We hypothesized that how a prairie was reclaimed, as represented by its reclamation permit, affects the optical properties of flowers and their appearance to pollinators. We photographed the standard and wing petals of Bird's Foot Trefoil (Lotus corniculatus), an important pollinator resource frequently used in each reclaimed prairie site. Sites were located at The Wilds, a conservation center established on reclaimed surface mine lands that span several different reclamation permits. We took photos of 20 flowers from each site in a controlled environment using a UV/IR sensitive camera that collected wavelengths in both the visible and ultraviolet spectrums. We then analyzed the photos using multispectral image calibration software to measure reflectance, luminance, and pattern. Across sites with different reclamation permits, reflectance values of visible blue on standard and wing petals were significantly different. Ultraviolet blue, ultraviolet red, cone-catch ultraviolet, and anthocyanin concentrations differed significantly between permit type and flower part. These differences suggest that bees may view flowers differently across reclamation permits, which could affect their likelihood to visit those resources.
Description
1st Place and Sustainability Institute Finalist in the Denman Undergraduate Research Forum for Animal and Environmental Sciences
Keywords
bee, prairie, reclamation, conservation, calibrated photographs