Behavioral Responses to Floral Scent

Abstract

Experimental investigations of the ecological importance of floral scent are increasingly performed in the context of other floral traits, such as color, shape and orientation. Such studies typically adopt one of three experimental approaches to manipulate floral scent: floral augmentation (adding scent to a flower), floral deconstruction (decoupling scent and other traits of living flowers) or floral reconstruction (recombining scent with other traits, using artificial flowers or flower parts). Such approaches have established the importance of multi-modal sensory attraction across the full spectrum of generalized to specialized pollination systems. This chapter outlines the multitude of ways that floral scent interacts with other floral traits, under different ecological contexts, with reference to a growing body of theory concerning how biotic and abiotic factors influence floral display. It is now clear that scent interacts with other floral traits to influence plant–pollinator network structure, reproductive isolation, host specialization, obligate mutualism, evolutionary pollinator shifts, floral mimicry, sexual and brood-site deception.