Format: ORAL

Marcin Zych1, Katarzyna Roguz1

1 Botanic Garden, University of Warsaw, Warsaw, Poland

Nectar is one of the important floral characters that shape plant-pollinator interactions. Some nectar properties, e.g. sugar profiles, seem relatively conservative across different populations of the same species, whereas there is reported considerable variation in others. For instance, in some members of the supergeneralist family Apiaceae nectar of individual plants from certain populations includes amino acids (AAs) that are absent in representatives of other populations. In species of Rhododendron producing toxic nectar such variation was reported for toxic grayanotoxine I. Such divergence may be correlated with habitat properties but also may reflect pollinator-mediated selection exerted by local insect communities. The paper discusses plausible evolutionary scenarios that arise from the spatial variation of nectar characters in plants, with the special focus on generalist pollination systems.