Pedicularis sceptrum-carolinum is threatened in much of its geographic range. As it reproduces vegetatively only to a limited extent, the species relies heavily on pollinators for reproduction. One aspect often overlooked in restoration efforts is the pollination ecology of flowering plants and their pollinators. To get a better understanding of the pollination ecology of P. sceptrum-carolinum in northern Sweden, their flower visitors were identified, and the number of flower visits was counted for flowering individuals at three different sites. The nearby flowering plant community was inventoried around each investigated P. sceptrum-carolinum. It was tested whether the number of flower visits were similar among sites, between large and small populations, and between populations with a majority of fresh flowers and populations with a majority of senescent flowers. To investigate whether the nearby plant community is important for the pollination of the species, the correlation between flower visits of P. sceptrum-carolinum and nearby flower abundance and diversity was analysed. No difference was found between sites, between large and small populations, or between populations where the majority of flowers were fresh and populations with a majority of flowers which had senesced. A moderate positive correlation was found between number of flower visits and nearby flower abundance and diversity respectively, if one site with an exceptionally large abundance of Trifolium pratense was excluded. As abundance and diversity of the nearby flowering plants were themselves highly correlated, their individual effect on flower visits of the studied P. sceptrum-carolinum could not be told apart in this study.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UPSALLA1/oai:DiVA.org:umu-196438 |
| Date | January 2022 |
| Creators | Närvä, Johan |
| Publisher | Umeå universitet, Institutionen för ekologi, miljö och geovetenskap |
| Source Sets | DiVA Archive at Upsalla University |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Student thesis, info:eu-repo/semantics/bachelorThesis, text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Rights | info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess |
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