FOOD-DECEPTIVE ORCHID SPECIES FLOWER EARLIER AND OCCUR AT LOWER ALTITUDES THAN REWARDING ONES

Food-deceptive pollination is common within the family Orchidaceae in which plants do not offer any food reward reward to their pollinators. As food-deceptive orchids are poorer competitors for pollinator visitation than rewarding orchids, their occurrence in a given habitat may be more constrained than that of rewarding orchids. Study on European orchids by Pellissier et al (2010) found some interesting facts on this. According to them, deceptive orchid species start flowering earlier than rewarding orchids do. Also, the relative frequency of deceptive orchids decreases with altitude, suggesting that deception may be less profitable at high compared to low altitude. Paper based on this findings in published in Journal of Plant Ecology,3(4),243-250. Link for article.