ArticleProceedings. Biological sciences2023
The economy of pollen dispersal in flowering plants.
Article in Proceedings. Biological sciences, 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 12 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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Who cites it
12 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 30 citations in OpenAlex.
- Loss of pollinator diversity consistently reduces reproductive success for wild and cultivated plants.Nature ecology & evolution · 2025Pooled it
- Generalized pollination of morphologically specializedAoB PLANTS · 2026Article
- Pollination by long-proboscid horseflies and its implications for reproductive isolation among coflowering Satyrium orchids in South Africa.American journal of botany · 2026Article
- Floral syndromes in Aquilegia (Ranunculaceae) are associated with nectar- but not pollen-collecting pollinators.Annals of botany · 2026Article
- Reproductive Success Beyond Pollinators: Microhabitat Effects and Pollen Dynamics inPlants (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Article
- Dimorphic enantiostyly and its function for pollination by carpenter bees in a pollen-rewarding Caribbean bloodwort.American journal of botany · 2026Article
- Floral specialization for beetle pollination and its implications for pollen dispersal in an African orchid.American journal of botany · 2025Article
- Anther mimicry in an African orchid pollinated by pollen-feeding beetles.Plant biology (Stuttgart, Germany) · 2025Article
- Beyond the Grant-Stebbins model: floral adaptive landscapes and plant speciation.Annals of botany · 2025Review
- Pollination efficiency and the evolution of sex allocation - diminishing returns matter.The New phytologist · 2025Article
- Pollen transfer efficiency inPhytoKeys · 2024Article
- The economy of pollen dispersal in flowering plants.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2023Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
2 authors at 2 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Mating success of flowering plants depends strongly on the efficiencies of pollen removal from flowers and its subsequent dispersal to conspecific stigmas. We characterized the economy of pollen dispersal in flowering plants by analysing pollen fates and their correlates for 228 species. The mean percentage of pollen removed from flowers (removal efficiency) varied almost twofold according to the type of pollen-dispersal unit, from less than 45% for orchids and milkweeds with solid pollinia, to greater than 80% for species with granular monads or sectile (segmented) pollinia. The mean percentage of removed pollen reaching stigmas (pollen transfer efficiency, PTE) varied from 2.4% for species with separate monads to 27.0% for orchids with solid pollinia. These values tended to be higher in plants with single pollinator species and in those with non-grooming pollinators. Nectar production increased removal efficiency, but did not influence PTE. Among types of pollen-dispersal units, the net percentage of produced pollen that was dispersed to stigmas varied negatively with removal efficiency and positively with PTE, indicating the relative importance of the latter for overall pollen economy. These findings confirm the key importance of floral traits, particularly pollen packaging, for pollen dispersal outcomes and highlight the under-appreciated pollination efficiency of non-grooming pollinators.
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