Steady improvements of image description methods induced a growing interest in image-based plant species classification, a task vital to the study of biodiversity and ecological sensitivity. Various techniques have been proposed for general object classification over the past years and several of them have already been studied for plant species classification. However, results of these studies ...

The potential movement of transgenes from genetically modified crops to non-genetically modified crops via insect-mediated pollen dispersal has been highlighted as one of the areas of greatest concern in regards to genetically modified crops. Pollen movement depends sensitively on spatial and temporal variation in the movement of insect pollinators between crop fields. This study tested the deg...

Cymbidium faberi is a traditional orchid flower in China that is highly appreciated for its fragrant aroma from its zygomorphic flowers. One bottleneck of the commercial production of C. faberi is the long vegetative growth phase of the orchid and the difficulty of the regulation of its flowering time. Moreover, its flower size, shape and color are often targeting traits for orchid breeders. Un...

Diversity of flower traits is often proposed as the outcome of selection exerted by pollinators. Positive directional pollinator-mediated selection on floral size has been widely shown to reduce phenotypic variance. However, the underlying mechanism of maintaining within-population floral color polymorphism is poorly understood. Divergent selection, mediated by different pollinators or by both ...

Foraging pollinators can be expected to choose patches with high densities of floral resources. As a result, plants in flower-dense patches may receive higher visitation rates and pollination, hence, the pollination of one plant may be facilitated by the presence of neighbour plants. Facilitation of pollination has been predicted by theoretical models and demonstrated in some empirical studies,...

BACKGROUND AND AIMS Macaranga (Euphorbiaceae) is a large genus of dioecious trees with approx. 260 species. To date, only one pollination study of the genus has reported brood-site pollination by thrips in M. hullettii. In this study, the pollination system of Macaranga tanarius is reported. METHODS The study was conducted on Okinawa and Amami Islands, Japan. Flower visitors on M. tanarius we...

Flowering plants in Australia have been geographically isolated for more than 34 million years. In the Northern Hemisphere, previous work has revealed a close fit between the optimal discrimination capabilities of hymenopteran pollinators and the flower colours that have most frequently evolved. We collected spectral data from 111 Australian native flowers and tested signal appearance consideri...

The EMBRYONIC FLOWER (EMF) genes EMF1 and EMF2 are required to maintain vegetative development and repress flower development. EMF1 encodes a putative transcriptional regulator, and EMF2 encodes a Polycomb group protein homolog. We examined expression profiles of emf mutants using GeneChip technology. The high degree of overlap in expression changes from the wild type among the emf1 and emf2 mu...

Bees feed almost exclusively on nectar and pollen from flowers. However, little is known about how food availability limits bee populations, especially in high elevation areas. Foraging distances and relationships between forager densities and resource availability can provide insights into the potential for food limitation in mobile consumer populations. For example, if floral resources are li...

Jatropha curcas seeds are an excellent biofuel feedstock, but seed yields of Jatropha are limited by its poor flowering and fruiting ability. Thus, identifying genes controlling flowering is critical for genetic improvement of seed yield. We isolated the JcLFY, a Jatropha ortholog of Arabidopsis thaliana LEAFY (LFY), and identified JcLFY function by overexpressing it in Arabidopsis and Jatropha...