Does neighborhood floral display matter? Fruit set in carpenter bee-pollinated heterophragma quadriloculare and beetle-pollinated lasiosiphon eriocephalus

Abstract

Fruit set is pollen-limited in the self-incompatible tree Heterophragma quadriloculare (Bignoniaceae), pollinated by long-distance flying carpenter bees, and in the self-compatible shrub Lasiosiphon eriocephalus (Thymeleaceae), pollinated by weak-flying, sedentary beetles. We studied a single H. quadriloculare population over high and low flowering years and found no difference in bee visitation rates between these years. For H. quadriloculare, neighborhood floral display did not make a significant contribution to reproductive success. We investigated dense and sparse L. eriocephalus populations in the same year. In the low density L. eriocephalus population, individual floral displays were higher than in the dense population, yet reproductive success was low, indicating that plant isolation was a major factor influencing fruit set. This result was due to the extremely low number of beetles per plant and per flower in this population. In the dense L. eriocephalus population, although the displays of individual neighbors were smaller and plants were closer, neighborhood floral display did not contribute significantly to reproductive success, whereas the effect of individual floral display was ambiguous. Species with self-incompatible rather than self-compatible breeding systems are expected to experience neighborhood effects on reproductive success; however, at the spatial scale and floral display levels of plants in this study, only individual floral display affected fruit set in H. quadriloculare, whereas neither individual nor neighborhood display influenced fruit set in L. eriocephalus. Therefore, pollinator type, pollinator behavior, and plant and population isolation, rather than breeding system alone, will determine if neighborhood floral display affects fruit set.