Floral Landscape Research Articles

New investigations on Cretaceous woods from the Jiaolai Basin, Shandong Province and their palaeoclimate relevance

The Jiaolai Basin of China is the southernmost edge of the distribution of the northern Jehol Biota and an important area which bears both the northern and southern palaeogeographical fauna representative species. The Laiyang flora in the Jiaolai Basin is located in the transitional region between the Early Cretaceous southern and northern flora of China. Currently, research on the plants in the transitional region between the northern and southern flora are relatively weak. Our study of specimens has enriched our understanding of the floral landscape in the transitional region between the north and south flora. Cretaceous wood fossils are well preserved in China and 66 species of 29 genera have been reported up to now, which are widely distributed in China. However, in the Cretaceous Shandong Province, there are few records of wood fossils. So far, only one genus and two species have been reported. In this paper a new material of fossil wood is described from the Early Cretaceous Zhifengzhuang Formation of Laiyang Group in Jingzhi area of Anqiu City, Jiaolai Basin, Shandong Province. The present specimen has uniseriate to triseriate pits on the radial walls of tracheids, taxodioid cross-field pitting and other characters. This discovery contributes to a better understanding of fossil wood diversity in Jiaolai Basin during the Cretaceous. Through the well preserved growth rings of the specimens, it can be inferred that the environmental paleoclimate of the Early Cretaceous in Shandong Province was generally arid, with some areas being humid.

Research on data-driven multi-sensory design path based on Chinese gardens under the perspective of AI big data

Abstract In order to promote the development of the Chinese gardening field, this paper proposes a data-driven, multi-sensory design for Chinese gardens. The multisensory design of Chinese gardens, which combines data-driven technology and VR technology, is explored from two perspectives: the visual and auditory senses. It is found that the design easily leads to the loss of the natural beauty of the garden. For this reason, the layout optimization model is constructed using the improved PSO algorithm, and the corresponding analysis method is applied to analyze the effect of the multi-sensory design of the garden. The results show that the model in this paper is better than the other two control models in terms of weighted mean (4.078) and convergence time (0–4 ms). It was also found that the basis for visitors to make experience visual satisfaction evaluations was basically whether the floral landscape was beautiful (39.18%) and whether the field of view was open (23.27%), and the auditory experience design evaluation scores were higher for acacia forests (5.436), red-leafed ridges (4.091), snapdragon forests (3.872), and metasequoia forests (3.657) in the gardens. The research in this paper reveals the focus of multi-sensory design in Chinese gardens, which can provide theoretical references for research in the field of Chinese garden design.

Honeybee visitation to shared flowers increases Vairimorpha ceranae prevalence in bumblebees.

Vairimorpha (=Nosema) ceranae is a widespread pollinator parasite that commonly infects honeybees and wild pollinators, including bumblebees. Honeybees are highly competent V. ceranae hosts and previous work in experimental flight cages suggests V. ceranae can be transmitted during visitation to shared flowers. However, the relationship between floral visitation in the natural environment and the prevalence of V. ceranae among multiple bee species has not been explored. Here, we analyzed the number and duration of pollinator visits to particular components of squash flowers-including the petals, stamen, and nectary-at six farms in southeastern Michigan, USA. We also determined the prevalence of V. ceranae in honeybees and bumblebees at each site. Our results showed that more honeybee flower contacts and longer duration of contacts with pollen and nectar were linked with greater V. ceranae prevalence in bumblebees. Honeybee visitation patterns appear to have a disproportionately large impact on V. ceranae prevalence in bumblebees even though honeybees are not the most frequent flower visitors. Floral visitation by squash bees or other pollinators was not linked with V. ceranae prevalence in bumblebees. Further, V. ceranae prevalence in honeybees was unaffected by floral visitation behaviors by any pollinator species. These results suggest that honeybee visitation behaviors on shared floral resources may be an important contributor to increased V. ceranae spillover to bumblebees in the field. Understanding how V. ceranae prevalence is influenced by pollinator behavior in the shared floral landscape is critical for reducing parasite spillover into declining wild bee populations.

Scenic perennial plants classification

Earth sphere flora most of them a lot yearly plants enters. A lot yearly scenic plants floral landscape harvest in doing important important has of plants land over part each year in winter dead will be, the root or onions preserved remains. In the spring while from him new stems grow up comes out A lot yearly of plants to live term sharp differs and one how many from from 10 to 100 years, sometimes even 1000 years can A lot yearly scenic plants to the group tulip, velvet or bellflower, marigold, chamomile, potato flower, safflower, safflower and others enters.

Temporal Patterns of Honeybee Foraging in a Diverse Floral Landscape Revealed Using Pollen DNA Metabarcoding of Honey.

SynopsisUnderstanding the plants pollinators use through the year is vital to support pollinator populations and mitigate for declines in floral resources due to habitat loss. DNA metabarcoding allows the temporal picture of nectar and pollen foraging to be examined in detail. Here, we use DNA metabarcoding to examine the forage use of honeybees (Apis mellifera L.) within a florally diverse landscape within the UK, documenting the key forage plants used and seasonal progression over two years. The total number of plant taxa detected in the honey was 120, but only 16 of these were found with a high relative read abundance of DNA, across the main foraging months (April–September). Only a small proportion of the available flowering genera in the landscape were used by the honeybees. The greatest relative read abundance came from native or near-native plants, including Rubus spp., Trifolium repens, the Maleae tribe including Crataegus, Malus, and Cotoneaster, and Hedera helix. Tree species were important forage in the spring months, followed by increased use of herbs and shrubs later in the foraging season. Garden habitat increased the taxon richness of native, near-native and horticultural plants found in the honey. Although horticultural plants were rarely found abundantly within the honey samples, they may be important for increasing nutritional diversity of the pollen forage.

Punch in the gut: parasite tolerance of phytochemicals reflects host diet.

Gut parasites of plant-eating insects are exposed to antimicrobial phytochemicals that can reduce infection. Trypanosomatid gut parasites infect insects of diverse nutritional ecologies as well as mammals and plants, raising the question of how host diet-associated phytochemicals shape parasite evolution and host specificity. To test the hypothesis that phytochemical tolerance of trypanosomatids reflects the chemical ecology of their hosts, we compared related parasites from honey bees and mosquitoes - hosts that differ in phytochemical consumption - and contrasted our results with previous studies on phylogenetically related, human-parasitic Leishmania. We identified one bacterial and 10 plant-derived substances with known antileishmanial activity that also inhibited honey bee parasites associated with colony collapse. Bee parasites exhibited greater tolerance of chrysin - a flavonoid found in nectar, pollen and plant resin-derived propolis. In contrast, mosquito parasites were more tolerant of cinnamic acid - a product of lignin decomposition present in woody debris-rich larval habitats. Parasites from both hosts tolerated many compounds that inhibit Leishmania, hinting at possible trade-offs between phytochemical tolerance and mammalian infection. Our results implicate the phytochemistry of host diets as a potential driver of insect-trypanosomatid associations and identify compounds that could be incorporated into colony diets or floral landscapes to ameliorate infection in bees.

Exploring the Role of Cognition in the Annual Fall Migration of the Monarch Butterfly (Danaus plexippus).

Simple SummaryEach year, millions of monarch butterflies in eastern North America undergo a spectacular fall migration to overwintering sites in central Mexico, where they remain until returning northward in the spring. In addition to the navigational challenges faced during the southward flight, migratory individuals are also challenged with the foraging task of locating high-quality nectar sources for overwinter survival in the face of unfamiliar floral landscapes that change in complex and unpredictable ways. In the research reported here, a proboscis extension paradigm is used to investigate learning and long-term memory abilities that might help fall migrants meet these unique foraging demands. Male and female migratory and captive-reared individuals were consecutively trained to perform color and odor cue discriminations and then tested for their ability to simultaneously retain reward information associated with each cue in memory without reinforcement over a period of 7 days. Results showed that male and female fall migrants can learn the reward properties of color and odor cues with over 75% accuracy after less than 40 s of exposure and can simultaneously retain visual and olfactory information predicting the availability of floral rewards in memory without reinforcement for at least 7 days. Captive-reared male butterflies also showed the ability to retain visual and olfactory information in long-term memory for 7 days; however, 80% of captive-reared females could not retain color cues in long-term memory for more than 24 h. These novel findings are consistent with the view that monarch butterflies have enhancements to long-term memory that enable them to minimize the amount of time and energy wasted searching for suitable nectar sources during their annual fall migration, thereby optimizing migratory performance and increasing the chance of overwinter survival. The possibility that female monarchs undergo a seasonal change in visual long-term memory warrants further empirical investigation.Each fall, monarch butterflies in eastern North America undergo an extraordinary long-distance migration to wintering areas in central Mexico, where they remain until returning northward in the spring. Migrants survive the overwintering period by metabolizing lipid reserves accumulated exclusively though floral nectar; however, there is little known about how individuals maximize foraging efficiency in the face of floral environments that constantly change in complex and unpredictable ways along their migratory route. Here, a proboscis extension paradigm is used to investigate the role of cognition during the foraging phase of monarch migration. Male and female migratory butterflies were consecutively trained to discriminate between two color and odor cues and then tested for their ability to simultaneously retain the information on the reward value of each cue in memory without reinforcement over a period of 7 days. To gain further insight into cognitive abilities of monarchs as a migratory species, a second set of captive-reared males and females were tested under harnessed conditions at the same time as wild-caught fall migrants. Results showed that male and female migrants can learn the reward properties of color and odor cues with over 75% accuracy after less than 40 s of exposure and can simultaneously retain visual and olfactory information predicting the availability of floral rewards in memory without reinforcement for at least 7 days. Captive-reared male butterflies also showed the ability to retain visual and olfactory information in long-term memory for 7 days; however, 80% of captive-reared females could not retain color cues in long-term memory for more than 24 h. These novel findings are consistent with the view that monarch butterflies, as a migratory species, have enhancements to long-term memory that enable them to minimize the amount of time and energy wasted searching for suitable nectar sources during their annual fall migration, thereby optimizing migratory performance and increasing the chance of overwinter survival. The possibility that female monarchs undergo a seasonal change in visual long-term memory warrants further empirical investigation.

Oriental Landscape in the Novel “Journey to the Orient” by G. de Nerval

The presented article continues the cycle of the author’s research that reveals the specifics of the perception and artistic embodiment of various types of landscape space in French romantic prose. The relevance of the study is due to the appeal to the work of the unjustly forgotten French writer G. de Nerval, who in the novel “Journey to the Orient” was one of the first to acquaint the reader with the specifics of the eastern urban landscape, previously little known in European literature of the 19th century. Analysis of the novel shows that G. de Nerval tried to comprehend the East from different points of view: spiritual, ethnographic and literary and artistic. It is noted that the importance of describing the urban landscape for G. de Nerval testifies to his understanding of the importance of the links between nature, culture and civilization. It is noted that the floral landscape has various functions in his work: historical, ethnographic and national. As a result, it was established that G. de Nerval in his novel was able to recreate a reliable picture of the East: its oriental landscape is saturated not only with exotic descriptions of flora and fauna, enlivened by the sounds of local nature, but also has valuable author’s comments that give an idea of the national specifics of the plot.

Application of plant metabarcoding to identify diverse honeybee pollen forage along an urban-agricultural gradient.

Understanding animal foraging ecology requires large sample sizes spanning broad environmental and temporal gradients. For pollinators, this has been hampered by the laborious nature of morphologically identifying pollen. Identifying pollen from urban environments is particularly difficult due to the presence of diverse ornamental species associated with consumer horticulture. Metagenetic pollen analysis represents a potential solution to this issue. Building upon prior laboratory and bioinformatic methods, we applied quantitative multilocus metabarcoding to characterize the foraging ecology of honeybee colonies situated in urban, suburban, mixed suburban-agricultural and rural agricultural sites in central Ohio, USA. In cross-validating a subset of our metabarcoding results using microscopic palynology, we find strong concordance between the molecular and microscopic methods. Our results suggest that forage from the agricultural site exhibited decreased taxonomic diversity and temporal turnover relative to the urban and suburban sites, though the generalization of this observation will require replication across additional sites and cities. Our work demonstrates the power of honeybees as environmental samplers of floral community composition at large spatial scales, aiding in the distinction of taxa characteristically associated with urban or agricultural land use from those distributed ubiquitously across the sampled landscapes. Observed patterns of high forage diversity and compositional turnover in our more urban sites are likely reflective of the fine-grain heterogeneity and high beta diversity of urban floral landscapes at the scale of honeybee foraging. This provides guidance for future studies investigating how relationships between urbanization and measures of pollinator health are mediated by variation in floral resource dynamics across landscapes.

Chemistry, Sustainability and Naturality of Perfumery Biotech Ingredients.

Invited for this month's cover is the group of Sylvain Antoniotti at the University Côte d'Azur. The image shows a perfume dispenser containing bacterial cells delivering odorants molecules with a wide diversity and complexity of structures and olfactory notes. The person wears an art nouveau pendant featuring an enzyme and is peacefully hanging in a green and floral landscape. The Minireview itself is available at 10.1002/cssc.202001661.

Synergistic effects of floral phytochemicals against a bumblebee parasite.

Floral landscapes comprise diverse phytochemical combinations. Individual phytochemicals in floral nectar and pollen can reduce infection in bees and directly inhibit trypanosome parasites. However, gut parasites of generalist pollinators, which consume nectar and pollen from many plant species, are exposed to phytochemical combinations. Interactions between phytochemicals could augment or decrease effects of single compounds on parasites. Using a matrix of 36 phytochemical treatment combinations, we assessed the combined effects of two floral phytochemicals, eugenol and thymol, against four strains of the bumblebee gut trypanosome Crithidia bombi. Eugenol and thymol had synergistic effects against C. bombi growth across seven independent experiments, showing that the phytochemical combination can disproportionately inhibit parasites. The strength of synergistic effects varied across strains and experiments. Thus, the antiparasitic effects of individual compounds will depend on both the presence of other phytochemicals and parasite strain identity. The presence of synergistic phytochemical combinations could augment the antiparasitic activity of individual compounds for pollinators in diverse floral landscapes.

A \u2018Landscape physiology\u2019 approach for assessing bee health highlights the benefits of floral landscape enrichment and semi-natural habitats

Understanding how anthropogenic landscape alteration affects populations of ecologically- and economically-important insect pollinators has never been more pressing. In this context, the assessment of landscape quality typically relies on spatial distribution studies, but, whether habitat-restoration techniques actually improve the health of targeted pollinator populations remains obscure. This gap could be filled by a comprehensive understanding of how gradients of landscape quality influence pollinator physiology. We therefore used this approach for honey bees (Apis mellifera) to test whether landscape patterns can shape bee health. We focused on the pre-wintering period since abnormally high winter colony losses have often been observed. By exposing colonies to different landscapes, enriched in melliferous catch crops and surrounded by semi-natural habitats, we found that bee physiology (i.e. fat body mass and level of vitellogenin) was significantly improved by the presence of flowering catch crops. Catch crop presence was associated with a significant increase in pollen diet diversity. The influence of semi-natural habitats on bee health was even stronger. Vitellogenin level was in turn significantly linked to higher overwintering survival. Therefore, our experimental study, combining landscape ecology and bee physiology, offers an exciting proof-of-concept for directly identifying stressful or suitable landscapes and promoting efficient pollinator conservation.

The medicinal value of phytochemicals is hindered by pathogen evolution of resistance

Repeated exposure to inhibitory compounds can drive the evolution of resistance, which weakens chemical defence against antagonists. Floral phytochemicals in nectar and pollen have antimicrobial properties that can ameliorate infection in pollinators, but evolved resistance among parasites could diminish the medicinal efficacy of phytochemicals. However, multicompound blends, which occur in nectar and pollen, present simultaneous chemical challenges that may slow resistance evolution. We assessed evolution of resistance by the common bumble bee gut parasite Crithidia bombi to two floral phytochemicals, singly and combined, over 6 weeks (~100 generations) of chronic exposure. Resistance of C. bombi increased under single and combined phytochemical exposure, without any associated costs of reduced growth under phytochemical-free conditions. After 6 weeks’ exposure, phytochemical concentrations that initially inhibited growth by > 50%, and exceeded concentrations in floral nectar, had minimal effects on evolved parasite lines. Unexpectedly, the phytochemical combination did not impede resistance evolution compared to single compounds. These results demonstrate that repeated phytochemical exposure, which could occur in homogeneous floral landscapes or with therapeutic phytochemical treatment of managed hives, can cause rapid evolution of resistance in pollinator parasites. We discuss possible explanations for submaximal phytochemical resistance in natural populations. Evolved resistance could diminish the antiparasitic value of phytochemical ingestion, weakening an important natural defence against infection. Introduction

Wild Bee Community Assemblages Across Agricultural Landscapes

Wild bees are essential to the functioning of both agricultural and natural ecosystems, yet these pollinator communities are declining worldwide. Agricultural intensification by means of habitat and floral resource loss is thought to be one of the leading causes of wild bee population deterioration. This study examined multiple agricultural land use systems in New Hampshire to determine how wild bee biodiversity and community interactions are affected by different land use practices. A total of 2292 wild bees were collected during these surveys, representing 112 species. A high species overlap was found at all land use systems, although all sites had some species exclusivity. Land use significantly affected species abundance and richness. The moderately managed sites supported both the greatest pollinator abundance and species richness, while the low management sites had the smallest abundance and the same level of richness as the high management sites. The findings of this study support the importance of floral landscape diversity in bee conservation efforts and suggest that not all agricultural practices negatively affect the pollinator community.

Evolution of resistance to single and combined floral phytochemicals by a bumble bee parasite.

Repeated exposure to inhibitory compounds can drive the evolution of resistance, which weakens chemical defence against antagonists. Floral phytochemicals in nectar and pollen have antimicrobial properties that can ameliorate infection in pollinators, but evolved resistance among parasites could diminish the medicinal efficacy of phytochemicals. However, multicompound blends, which occur in nectar and pollen, present simultaneous chemical challenges that may slow resistance evolution. We assessed evolution of resistance by the common bumble bee gut parasite Crithidia bombi to two floral phytochemicals, singly and combined, over 6 weeks (~100 generations) of chronic exposure. Resistance of C. bombi increased under single and combined phytochemical exposure, without any associated costs of reduced growth under phytochemical‐free conditions. After 6 weeks’ exposure, phytochemical concentrations that initially inhibited growth by > 50%, and exceeded concentrations in floral nectar, had minimal effects on evolved parasite lines. Unexpectedly, the phytochemical combination did not impede resistance evolution compared to single compounds. These results demonstrate that repeated phytochemical exposure, which could occur in homogeneous floral landscapes or with therapeutic phytochemical treatment of managed hives, can cause rapid evolution of resistance in pollinator parasites. We discuss possible explanations for submaximal phytochemical resistance in natural populations. Evolved resistance could diminish the antiparasitic value of phytochemical ingestion, weakening an important natural defence against infection.

Testing models of bee foraging behavior through the analysis of pollen loads and floral density data

The composition of social bees’ corbicular pollen loads contains information about both the bees’ foraging behavior and the surrounding floral landscape. There have been, however, few attempts to integrate pollen composition and floral landscape to test hypotheses about foraging behavior. Here, we present an individual-based model that generates the species composition of pollen loads given a foraging model and a spatial distribution of floral resources. We apply this model to an existing dataset of inflorescence counts and bumble bee pollen loads sampled at different field sites in California. For two out of three sites, a foraging model consisting in correlated random walks with constant preferences for each plant species provides a plausible fit for the observed distribution of pollen load content. Pollen load compositions at the third site could be explained by an extension of the model, where different preferences apply to the choice of an initial foraging patch and subsequent foraging steps. Since this model describes the expected level of pollen load differentiation due solely to the spatial clustering of conspecific plants, it provides a null hypothesis against which more complex descriptions of behavior (e.g. flower constancy) can be tested.

Bunny Days (review)

Reviewed by: Bunny Days Deborah Stevenson Nyeu, Tao. Bunny Days; written and illus. by Tao Nyeu. Dial, 2010 [48p]. ISBN 978-0-8037-330-5 $16.99 Reviewed from galleys R* 3–6 yrs Bunny days are surprisingly eventful for this herd of half-a-dozen snowy little rabbits. In the first adventure, they’re splattered with chocolatey mud by Mr. Goat’s tractor and their friend Bear has to wash and dry them; in the second, they’re sucked out of their burrow into Mrs. Goat’s vacuum cleaner and Bear has to free them and dust them; in the third, their cottony tails fall afoul of Mr. Goat’s careless hedge clipper and Bear must reattach them. This bunny tale offers a delicious blend of cozy appeal—it’s more a toy-animal play drama than a nature story—and pokerfaced absurdity; youngsters will adore the details of line-dried bunnies (after they were washed on the delicate cycle, of course) and Bear’s kindly succor (as he sews the tails back on, “Bear is very gentle”). Kids will need to pay attention to the art as well as the text to glean the plot, but they will quickly pick up on the stories’ pattern—bunnies inadvertently distressed by Mr. or Mrs. Goat and then repaired by Bear—and anticipate its playing out in each adventure. Silkscreened ink art has the sturdy, regular lines of Crockett Johnson, and the retro flavor is enhanced by the restrained palette, with only two colors (albeit in a variety of shades) employed in most spreads; strong, rhythmic patterning, in floral landscape details and in the bunny shapes themselves, contrasts with the peaceful negative space and keeps the art interesting. Animal-loving lapsitters will hop right on this. Copyright © 2010 The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois