Evidence map›Paper›PMID 38879632›Full record

ArticleScientific reports2024

Eco-evolutionary processes shaping floral nectar sugar composition.

Yicong Liu, Susanne Dunker, Walter Durka, Christophe Dominik, Jonna M Heuschele, Hanna Honchar, Petra Hoffmann, Martin Musche, Robert J Paxton, Josef Settele and 1 more

Abstract read
In one paragraph

Article in Scientific reports, 2024. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 11 papers.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
11citing papers in PubMed
–field-weighted citation impact
1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.

2 · The registry

The trial behind it

Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.

Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

11 citing papers in PubMed.

  1. Article
  2. Review
  3. Chemical Fingerprint of Floral Nectar in Apple (Antioxidants (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026
    Article
  4. Article
  5. Article
  6. Article
  7. Article
  8. Review
  9. Article
  10. Article
  11. Review
4 · The record

Corrections and comments

PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

11 authors.

Yicong LiuDepartment of Community Ecology, Helmholtz-Centre for Environmental Research-UFZ, Halle (Saale), Germany. liu.yicong@ufz.de.
Susanne DunkerDepartment of Physiological Diversity, Helmholtz-Centre for Environmental Research-UFZ, Leipzig, Germany.
Walter DurkaDepartment of Community Ecology, Helmholtz-Centre for Environmental Research-UFZ, Halle (Saale), Germany.
Christophe DominikDepartment of Community Ecology, Helmholtz-Centre for Environmental Research-UFZ, Halle (Saale), Germany.
Jonna M HeuscheleDepartment of Community Ecology, Helmholtz-Centre for Environmental Research-UFZ, Halle (Saale), Germany.
Hanna HoncharDepartment of Conservation Biology and Social-Ecological Systems, Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research-UFZ, Halle (Saale), Germany.
Petra HoffmannDepartment of Physiological Diversity, Helmholtz-Centre for Environmental Research-UFZ, Leipzig, Germany.
Martin MuscheDepartment of Conservation Biology and Social-Ecological Systems, Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research-UFZ, Halle (Saale), Germany.
Robert J PaxtonInstitute for Biology, Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg, Halle (Saale), Germany.
Josef SetteleGerman Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) Halle-Jena-Leipzig, Leipzig, Germany.
Oliver SchweigerDepartment of Community Ecology, Helmholtz-Centre for Environmental Research-UFZ, Halle (Saale), Germany.

Funding

Chinese Scholarship Council No. 201803250051Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft DFGPA632/10-1,12/1
6 · The paper itself

Abstract

Floral nectar sugar composition is assumed to reflect the nutritional demands and foraging behaviour of pollinators, but the relative contributions of evolutionary and abiotic factors to nectar sugar composition remain largely unknown across the angiosperms. We compiled a comprehensive dataset on nectar sugar composition for 414 insect-pollinated plant species across central Europe, along with phylogeny, paleoclimate, flower morphology, and pollinator dietary demands, to disentangle their relative effects. We found that phylogeny was strongly related with nectar sucrose content, which increased with the phylogenetic age of plant families, but even more strongly with historic global surface temperature. Nectar sugar composition was also defined by floral morphology, though it was not related to our functional measure of pollinator dietary demands. However, specialist pollinators of current plant-pollinator networks predominantly visited plant species with sucrose-rich nectar. Our results suggest that both physiological mechanisms related to plant water balance and evolutionary effects related to paleoclimatic changes have shaped floral nectar sugar composition during the radiation and specialisation of plants and pollinators. As a consequence, the high velocity of current climate change may affect plant-pollinator interaction networks due to a conflicting combination of immediate physiological responses and phylogenetic conservatism.

Indexed as

Biological EvolutionFlowersPhylogenyPlant NectarPollinationAnimalsClimate ChangeEuropeInsectaMagnoliopsidaSucroseSugarsPlant NectarSucroseSugars

Identifiers

PMID38879632
PMCPMC11180116

What OpenQuestion holds

Textmetadata
LicenceCC BY
Read underepoch 390

Registered trials

None linked

Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.