- Dijon, Bourgogne, France
Marie Charlotte Anstett
CNRS Université de Bourgogne, Biogeosciences, Faculty Member
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Research Interests: Chemical Ecology, Sexual Selection, Insect-Plant Interactions, Ecology, Pollination, and 16 moreSeasonality, Animals, Smell, Arecaceae, Flowers, Terpenes, Gas Chromatography, Weevils, Oecologia, Odors, Sex Factors, Analysis of Variance, Time Factors, Logistic Models, Volatile Compounds, and Plant Leaves
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Palm pollination systems are highly diverse, including by wind and by several different groups of insects. Many palm species are associated with more or less specific pollinating weevils that are also floral herbivores. For many such... more
Palm pollination systems are highly diverse, including by wind and by several different groups of insects. Many palm species are associated with more or less specific pollinating weevils that are also floral herbivores. For many such palms, the importance of these "palm flower weevils" as pollinators has not been examined. Here we describe a new ex situ method of demonstrating insect pollination when pollinator exclusion is not possible. We show that Neoderelomus piriformis beetles carry pollen and deposit it on the stigma of Phoenix canariensis. Up until now, pollination systems in Phoenix have been unclear, despite the economic importance of the date palm P. dactylifera. We demonstrate here that small weevils that visit inflorescences and often inconspicuously hide there could be efficient pollinators.
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Research Interests: Pharmacology, Biochemistry, Bioinformatics, Evolutionary Biology, Genetics, and 62 moreMarine Biology, Neuroscience, Geography, Environmental Science, Geophysics, Physics, Materials Science, Quantum Physics, Developmental Biology, Immunology, Climate Change, Soil, Molecular Biology, Structural Biology, Genomics, RNA, Computational Biology, Transcriptomics, Biotechnology, Systems Biology, Cancer, Biology, Metabolomics, Cell Cycle, Proteomics, Ecology, Drug Discovery, Evolution, Nanotechnology, Astrophysics, Neurobiology, Medicine, Multidisciplinary, Palaeobiology, Functional Genomics, Nature, Signal Transduction, Astronomy, DNA, Phylogeny, Plant Genome Project, Anthozoa, Case Study, Animals, Arecaceae, Cell Signalling, Medical Research, Flowers, Species Diversity, Plant Roots, Divergent Selection, Sympatric Speciation, Reproductive Isolation, Phylogenetic Tree, Altitude, Oceanic Islands, Species Specificity, Hydrogen-Ion Concentration, Theoretical Model, Earth Science, Oceans and Seas, and Gene pool
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Research Interests: Genetics, Conservation Biology, Conservation, Sensitivity Analysis, Endangered Species, and 11 moreConservation planning, Biological Sciences, Population viability analysis, Environmental Sciences, Density dependence, Extinction Risk, Data Quality, Population Size, Population Growth, Spatially Explicit Model, and Software Package
Research Interests: Chemical Ecology, Sexual Selection, Insect-Plant Interactions, Ecology, Pollination, and 16 moreSeasonality, Animals, Smell, Arecaceae, Flowers, Terpenes, Gas Chromatography, Weevils, Oecologia, Odors, Sex Factors, Analysis of Variance, Time Factors, Logistic Models, Volatile Compounds, and Plant Leaves
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Volatile compounds, which frequently play important roles in plant-insect interaction, can be produced either by flowers to attract pollinators or by leaves to deter herbivores. The specialized structures associated with odor production... more
Volatile compounds, which frequently play important roles in plant-insect interaction, can be produced either by flowers to attract pollinators or by leaves to deter herbivores. The specialized structures associated with odor production differ in these two organs. The European dwarf palm Chamaerops humilis represents a unique intermediate between these two. In previous work, its leaves were shown to produce volatile organic compounds (VOCs) that attract pollinators only during flowering. Because the leaf sinuses look like a gland, the sinus was examined histologically and with environmental scanning electron microscopy (ESEM) for evidence that the sinus emits VOCs. Volatile compounds emitted by the different parts of the leaf were extracted by washes and headspace then analyzed by gas chromatograph-mass spectrometer (GC-MS). The sinus does not have the expected gland-like structure; the VOCs are actually produced by the whole leaf, even if the composition of the VOCs emitted by the sinus slightly differs. Thus, attraction of pollinators does not result from specialized secreting cells in leaves of flowering European dwarf palms. The results are discussed in the context of a convergent evolution of leaves toward petals.
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Research Interests: Evolutionary Biology, Zoology, Reproduction, Symbiosis, Insect-Plant Interactions, and 16 morePollination, Conflict of Interest, Pollination ecology, Mutualism, Animals, Arecaceae, Flowers, Beetles, Egg Laying, Fruit set and development, Sex Factors, Time Factors, Larva, Oviposition, Pollen dispersal, and Larval Development
Marianne Elias1∗, Doyle McKey1, Olivier Panaud2, Marie Charlotte Anstett1 & Thierry Robert2 1Centre d'Ecologie Fonctionnelle et Evolutive (CEFE), CNRS, 1919 route de Mende, 34293 Montpellier cedex 5, France; 2Laboratoire Evolution et... more
Marianne Elias1∗, Doyle McKey1, Olivier Panaud2, Marie Charlotte Anstett1 & Thierry Robert2 1Centre d'Ecologie Fonctionnelle et Evolutive (CEFE), CNRS, 1919 route de Mende, 34293 Montpellier cedex 5, France; 2Laboratoire Evolution et Systématique, bâtiment 360, ...
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Research Interests:
Research Interests: Pharmacology, Biochemistry, Bioinformatics, Evolutionary Biology, Genetics, and 44 moreMarine Biology, Neuroscience, Geography, Environmental Science, Geophysics, Physics, Materials Science, Quantum Physics, Developmental Biology, Immunology, Climate Change, Molecular Biology, Structural Biology, Genomics, RNA, Computational Biology, Transcriptomics, Biotechnology, Systems Biology, Cancer, Biology, Metabolomics, Cell Cycle, Proteomics, Ecology, Drug Discovery, Evolution, Nanotechnology, Astrophysics, Neurobiology, Medicine, Multidisciplinary, Palaeobiology, Functional Genomics, Nature, Signal Transduction, Astronomy, DNA, Cell Signalling, Medical Research, Plants, Biological evolution, Earth Science, and Oceans and Seas
Abstract. Pollination of fig trees depends on mutualist wasps that reproduce within their flowers. Until recently, it was assumed that there was a short window of time during which a fig crop could be pollinated. Hence, pollination of... more
Abstract. Pollination of fig trees depends on mutualist wasps that reproduce within their flowers. Until recently, it was assumed that there was a short window of time during which a fig crop could be pollinated. Hence, pollination of figs was thought to depend on extreme efficiency of the wasps in locating receptive trees. In that context, extensive data on the Costa Rican fig tree Ficus pertusa L. have been very difficult to understand. In F. pertusa, figs of different crops attract wasps at different stages of their development. The crops that attract wasps the earliest in their development are the most heavily visited ones, but mature the fewest pollinator offspring and seeds on a per-fig basis. Using simulation models of pollinator population dynamics and field data, we show that (i) attractiveness of a crop is prolonged, (ii) wasps prefer large figs when given a choice, and (iii) the observed pattern of preferential early visitation of crops can be explained by temporal variations in pollinator abundance. This emphasizes the importance of population-level mechanisms to explain the fig/fig wasp mutualism.
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Figs and fig wasps form one of the best known examples of species-specific mutualism and coevolution. Recent experiments and observations have led to a better understanding of the evolutionary processes involved in the origin and... more
Figs and fig wasps form one of the best known examples of species-specific mutualism and coevolution. Recent experiments and observations have led to a better understanding of the evolutionary processes involved in the origin and maintenance of species interactions. The observed fine-tuned traits involve not only coevolution but also selection acting on only one of the partners. Furthermore, some of the ‘fine-tuned traits’ appear to be be preadaptions — traits that existed before the mutalism was establised.
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In pollination mutualisms, floral odours are signals advertising the presence and location of rewards. However, in the case of the dwarf palm (Chamaerops humilis) and its species-specific pollinating weevil (Derelomus chamaeropsis),... more
In pollination mutualisms, floral odours are signals advertising the presence and location of rewards. However, in the case of the dwarf palm (Chamaerops humilis) and its species-specific pollinating weevil (Derelomus chamaeropsis), rewards and advertisements are spatially separated. Flowers provide their specific pollinators with food and sites for both egg laying and larval development, but do not advertise them with floral odours or visually conspicuous petals. Insect behavioural bioassays revealed that pollinators are attracted by scents emitted by the leaves, which provide no rewards. These scents are released by large structures located at the sinuses of the palmate leaf. Such scent-releasing structures have not been previously reported on palm leaves, and we suggest that they may represent an ‘exaptation’ (pre-existing trait that acquired new functions). We also propose that such functional crossovers between vegetative and reproductive domains may be more frequent in plants than is currently documented.
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In the species-specific and obligate mutualism between the fig (Ficus carica) and its pollinator (the fig wasps Blastophaga psenes), a third participant, the ant Crematogaster scutellaris, is a predator of the wasps. Here, we ask how ant... more
In the species-specific and obligate mutualism between the fig (Ficus carica) and its pollinator (the fig wasps Blastophaga psenes), a third participant, the ant Crematogaster scutellaris, is a predator of the wasps. Here, we ask how ant workers can rapidly localise such prey, whose availability is limited in time and space. Using a Y-tube olfactometer, we tested ant response to odours emitted by different types of figs (receptive female, ripe female or male figs) and by fig wasps (pollinators or non-pollinators). We demonstrate that ants were significantly attracted only to odours emitted by pollinators, either alone or associated with odours of male figs (releasing wasps). Detection of prey odour by ants is an important trait that can explain their observed high rate of predation on pollinators, and could have important implications on the stability of the fig/fig wasp mutualism.