Publication Date:
2008-08-30
Description:
Plants use many means to attract pollinators, including visual cues and odor. We investigated how nonpigment floral chemistry influences nectar removal, floral visitation, florivory, rates of outcrossing, and fitness through both male and female functions. We blocked expression of biosynthetic genes of the dominant floral attractant [benzyl acetone (Nachal1)] and nectar repellent [nicotine (Napmt1/2)] in all combinations in the native tobacco Nicotiana attenuata and measured their effects on plants in their native habitat. Both repellent and attractant were required to maximize capsule production and seed siring in emasculated flowers and flower visitation by native pollinators, whereas nicotine reduced florivory and nectar robbing.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Notes: 〈/span〉Kessler, Danny -- Gase, Klaus -- Baldwin, Ian T -- New York, N.Y. -- Science. 2008 Aug 29;321(5893):1200-2. doi: 10.1126/science.1160072.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Author address: 〈/span〉Department of Molecular Ecology, Max-Planck-Institute for Chemical Ecology, Hans-Knoll-Strasse 8, DE-07745 Jena, Germany.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Record origin:〈/span〉 〈a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18755975" target="_blank"〉PubMed〈/a〉
Keywords:
Acetone/*analogs & derivatives/metabolism
;
Acyltransferases/genetics
;
Animals
;
Base Sequence
;
Birds/*physiology
;
Cloning, Molecular
;
Flowers/chemistry/*physiology
;
Methyltransferases/genetics
;
Molecular Sequence Data
;
Nicotine/*metabolism
;
*Odors
;
Plants, Genetically Modified
;
Pollen/physiology
;
RNA Interference
;
Reproduction
;
Seeds
;
Tobacco/genetics/*physiology
;
Transformation, Genetic
Print ISSN:
0036-8075
Electronic ISSN:
1095-9203
Topics:
Biology
,
Chemistry and Pharmacology
,
Computer Science
,
Medicine
,
Natural Sciences in General
,
Physics
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