Abstract
Many flower visitors engage in floral larceny, a suite of so-called ’illegitimate’ visits in which foragers take nectar without providing pollination services. The data on prevalence of illegitimate visits among hummingbirds, as well as the total proportion of foraging and diet that such visits comprise is broadly lacking. Here, we report the occurrence of nectar larceny in the two currently recognized species of trainbearers and analyze the proportion of plant visits categorized by mode of interaction as: robbing, theft, and/or pollination. We augment our original field observations using a trove of data from citizen science databases. Although it is difficult to distinguish primary vs. secondary robbing and theft vs. pollination, we conservatively estimate that ca. 40% of the recorded nectar foraging visits involve nectar robbing. Males appear to engage in robbing marginally more than females, but further studies are necessary to confidently examine the multi-way interactions among sex, species, mode of visitation, and other factors. Our results also indicate that the suggested relationship between serrations on bill tomia and traits such as nectar robbing or territorial defense may be complicated. We discuss the significance of these findings in the context of recent developments in study of nectar foraging, larceny, and pollination from both avian and plant perspectives.
Highlights
A growing list of bird species across several clades are known to forage for nectar on so-called ‘illegitimate’flower visits, in which flower rewards are taken without the requisite provision of pollination services. termed ‘floral larceny,’ this mode of foraging is correspondingly gaining a broader appreciation as an important factor shaping the ecology and evolution of plant-animal interactions (Lara and Ornelas, 2001; Irwin et al, 2010; Rojas-Nossa et al, 2016; Boehm, 2018)
The second most common mode was combined ‘nectar robbing’ indicating that an individual fed through a pierced hole in the side of the corolla
Hummingbirds are generally thought to serve as legitimate flower visitors, and effect pollination in exchange for host plant nectar
Summary
Termed ‘floral larceny,’ this mode of foraging is correspondingly gaining a broader appreciation as an important factor shaping the ecology and evolution of plant-animal interactions (Lara and Ornelas, 2001; Irwin et al, 2010; Rojas-Nossa et al, 2016; Boehm, 2018). Species such as flower piercers (Diglossa, Passeriformes) are widely known to depend on nectar larceny, there are many reports of illegitimate visits by hummingbirds (Lara and Ornelas, 2001; Gonzalez and Loiselle, 2016). Some plant species are vulnerable to “base workers,” visitors that can probe along the base of the flower, between the free petals, and obtain nectar while bypassing both the anthers and/or stigma and the requisite damage or robbing
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