True species

[Rick]

I read some text from Cribb 1988. He mentioned that some taxonomists believe that Paph and Phrag are fly-pollinated while Cyp is bee-pollinated.

Early this year, I found 3 times this one stuck in the pouch of exuls.

Questions:

1. Is it bee or fly?
2. Why it die in the pouch?
3. Is it really a pollinator of exul?

Compare this insect to the hover fly Ocyptamus antiphales on pg 364 of June 2011 Orchids magazine that pollinates phrag pearcei in Ecuador. Very similar.

 

[Braem]

Compare this insect to the hover fly Ocyptamus antiphales on pg 364 of June 2011 Orchids magazine that pollinates phrag pearcei in Ecuador. Very similar.

That was a wild guess ... the only Paph we know for sure to be fly pollinated is rothschildianum ... and I still maintain that the picture here looks very much like a wasp.

 

[Rick]

That was a wild guess ... the only Paph we know for sure to be fly pollinated is rothschildianum ... and I still maintain that the picture here looks very much like a wasp.

Ecuador is a whole continent away from Krabi. No reason to suspect that the pollinator for Phrag pearcei is the same species as the bug that got trapped in the pouch of an exul in another country not even the same as its country of origin.

Point is that the insect pollinator for Phrag peacei is positively identified as a hover fly of a particular genus that looks almost identical to the photo of the insect extracted from Poozcard's exul. Not a wasp despite how close it looks like a small black wasp.

Although poozcard's insect is in poor condition and somewhat twisted, I can only see 1 pair of wings, and as previously noted, wasps have 2 good pairs of wings.

 

[Roth]

Actually some species seem to have very specific pollinators anyway. Callosum, sukhakhulii and appletonianum grow together in the wild, yet callosum x appletonianum has been found in many instances. No wild hybrids of sukhakhulii has ever been found, despite millions of wild collected plants over the decades for pot plant trade

sukhakhuli album has never been found in the wild, only aureum 'Paleface', callosum album, only once for the type callosum, the sublaeve has been found two times in Thailand, one in Vietnam, appletonianum album very few times, not more than 5 anyway (and two were cerveranum album), barbatum apparently once during the XIXth century, and once about 15 years ago, villosum album, only in Vietnam populations of villosum, and very few times, hennissianum album, fowliei album, never in the wild for those, they appeared in cultivation from seed, despite huge colonies of all of those species. All plants we know are art prop plants issued from those.

 

[Rick]

Actually some species seem to have very specific pollinators anyway. Callosum, sukhakhulii and appletonianum grow together in the wild, yet callosum x appletonianum has been found in many instances. No wild hybrids of sukhakhulii has ever been found, despite millions of wild collected plants over the decades for pot plant trade

This was my point using other examples.

 

[Rick]

the only Paph we know for sure to be fly pollinated is rothschildianum

I guess based on Attwood 1985

But I just spent 15 minutes on Google

Banziger published 2 papers in 2002 and 1996 documenting (hover fly) pollinators for:
bellatulum
callosum
parishii
villosum

Shi et al in 2007 and 2008 published on hover fly pollinators for:

barbigerum
dianthum

Interestingly the primary fly species for barbigerum and dianthum is the same (Episyrphus balteatus) although reportedly utilized in different ways.

I haven't been able to obtain the text for Banziger 2002, but the 1996 paper on villosum indicates 3 primary species Episyrphus alternans, Syrphus fulvifacies, and Betasyrphus serarius. The other 3 species not listed in the abstract I had access too.


Three genera of Syrphid species makes for lots of options.

The basic staminode structure of exul is similar to that of barbigerum and villosum, so maybe we could be looking for a flower fly of the genus Episyrphus for the exul pollinator??

 

[Braem]

Yes ... possibly ... but ther is always the problem of establishing whether a visitor is really the pollinator. I will accept a pollinator if I see pollen on the body of the beast.

 

[valenzino]

Actually some species seem to have very specific pollinators anyway. Callosum, sukhakhulii and appletonianum grow together in the wild, yet callosum x appletonianum has been found in many instances. No wild hybrids of sukhakhulii has ever been found, despite millions of wild collected plants over the decades for pot plant trade....

One wild hybrid of sukhakulii x appletonianum exists found recently.



Uploaded with ImageShack.us

A single plant in middle of maany suk.

 

[Rick]

Yes ... possibly ... but ther is always the problem of establishing whether a visitor is really the pollinator. I will accept a pollinator if I see pollen on the body of the beast.

The above mentioned articles are studies based on pollen aquisition, and not just visitation. In the barbigerum paper there is a table that counts total visits by all species, and break's down succesful and unseccesful aquisiton of pollen.

In fact references moved from one paper to the other indicate that observations were carried on to revisitation, pollination, and determination of fruit set rates.

The Shi et al 2008 paper was a downloadable pdf. You should check it out.

 

[Braem]

The above mentioned articles are studies based on pollen aquisition, and not just visitation. In the barbigerum paper there is a table that counts total visits by all species, and break's down succesful and unseccesful aquisiton of pollen.

In fact references moved from one paper to the other indicate that observations were carried on to revisitation, pollination, and determination of fruit set rates.

The Shi et al 2008 paper was a downloadable pdf. You should check it out.

Rick, thank you ... I will check this out ... it is good if we know what the pollinators are.

 

[Rick]

http://lseb.ibcas.ac.cn/oldzjxx/luoyb/PDF/83.pdf

Try this link

 

[Ernie]

http://lseb.ibcas.ac.cn/oldzjxx/luoyb/PDF/83.pdf

Try this link

That's my kind of casual reading. Thanks for posting the link.

 

[Rick]

That's my kind of casual reading. Thanks for posting the link.

Ernie

Even though I tracked down the Banziger citations separately on Google, they all apear in this document too.

I was only able to look at one abstract (the villosum work). I think everything else is esentially the "pay per view" version. See if you have access to some of the other papers.

 

[Ernie]

Will see if UCF holds subscriptions to the journals...