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15 May 2018 Pollination of Granadilla (Passiflora ligularis) Benefits From Large Wild Insects
Catalina Gutiérrez-Chacón, Felix Fornoff, Rodulfo Ospina-Torres, Alexandra-Maria Klein
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Abstract

The contribution of wild pollinators to food production has recently been assessed for many crops, although it remains unclear for several tropical crops. Granadilla (Passiflora ligularis Juss), a crop native to the tropical Andes, is one such crop where a gap exists regarding comprehensive knowledge about its pollination system. In a field experiment in the Colombian Andes, we 1) describe flower visitors in terms of visit quantity (visitation rate) and quality (touches of flower-reproductive structures), 2) assess the pollination system by comparing fruit set and fruit weight per flower in three pollination treatments: pollinator exclusion, open pollination, and supplementary pollination, and 3) evaluate pollination deficits (difference between open and supplementary pollination) in relation to pollinator density. We observed 12 bee species visiting granadilla flowers, with Apis mellifera Linnaeus being the most frequent species. However, large bees such as Xylocopa lachnea Moure and Epicharis rustica Olivier touched stigmata and anthers more often. Fruit set and fruit weight per flower were significantly lower in the pollinator exclusion treatment compared to open and supplementary pollination, while the latter treatments showed nonsignificant differences. Pollination deficit significantly decreased with the increasing density of large bees and wasps. Our results illustrate the high dependency of granadilla on wild pollinating insects and highlight the crucial role of large insects to granadilla production.This stresses the need to maintain or increase the density of large pollinators in granadilla production areas, which in turn will necessitate better knowledge on their ecological requirements to inform landscape planning and population-management programs.

© The Author(s) 2018. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of Entomological Society of America. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oup.com.
Catalina Gutiérrez-Chacón, Felix Fornoff, Rodulfo Ospina-Torres, and Alexandra-Maria Klein "Pollination of Granadilla (Passiflora ligularis) Benefits From Large Wild Insects," Journal of Economic Entomology 111(4), 1526-1534, (15 May 2018). https://doi.org/10.1093/jee/toy133
Received: 26 February 2018; Accepted: 24 April 2018; Published: 15 May 2018
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KEYWORDS
bees
Colombia
Neotropics
passion fruit
pollination
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