Format: ORAL

Rubn Torices 1, Ins lvarez 2; Lucía DeSoto 3; Camilo Ferrón 1; Yedra García 1 4; Luis Giménez-Benavides 1; José María Gómez5 Javier Jiménez-López 1; Eduardo Narbona6, John Richard Pannell7, Cristina Poyatos 1; Luis G. Quintanilla 1; Violeta Quiroga 1 5 8

1 University Rey Juan Carlos, Móstoles, Spain. 2 Real Jardín Botánico de Madrid, Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (RJB-CSIC), Madrid, Spain. 3 Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Madrid, Spain. 4 Lund University; Lund, Sweden 5 Estación Experimental de Zonas Áridas, Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (EEZA-CSIC), Almería, Spain 6 Universidad Pablo de Olavide, Seville, Spain. 7 University of Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland. 8 Universidad de Granada, Granada, Spain

Although pollinators have innate preferences for specific floral signals such as petal color, they can quickly adapt their preferences by associative learning, based on the quality and quantity of rewards (e.g., nectar) provided to them. In this sense, we might expect the local intraspecific neighborhood to have important consequences for an individual plants optimal strategy of both display and reward. Cohen and Shmida (1993) modelled the association between floral advertisement and reward, with specific attention to flower density. Their model predicts that allocation to signaling traits should be increased when flower density is low, thereby facilitating visibility, whereas allocation to reward should be favored under conditions of high flower density or low visitation rate, thereby capitalizing on favorable pollinator choice. However, to our knowledge, we still lack formal theoretical foundations for predicting the potential kinship effects on the relationship between floral signaling and reward. In our study, we experimentally examined how neighboring kinship affects the relationship between floral signaling and reward. We found that the genetic relatedness of neighbors significantly altered the relationship between floral color and reward quantity. Specifically, plants growing with non-kin exhibited a positive relationship between petal color and nectar production. However, this relationship became negative when plants had no neighbors or when their neighbors were kin. The observed plastic sensitivity to neighborhood composition in the honesty of floral signals might have important effects on pollinator behavior and visitation, with direct and indirect effects on plant reproductive success and mating patterns.