In Peru, a Plant Genus With Remarkable Pollinator Interaction - Observation of the Week, 5/4/2021

Our Observation of the Week is this Nasa picta plant, seen in Peru by @then

A botanist at the Leibniz Centre for Agricultural Landscape Research, Dr. Tilo Henning was born and raised in Berlin and describes himself as 

sort of a classical nature-lover who has caught and collected animals and plants as a child already. At the age of ten I started growing tropical plants at home and later kept different exotic pets such as poison frogs and turtles. Until this day I collect and cultivate many rare plants in vivaria in my house.

As a young adult he focused on botany and has worked on plants in the Loasaceae family since the beginning of his studies. “During my diploma and PhD studies,” he says, 

I revised many species groups in the genus Nasa and described a number of species new to science with my colleagues from Germany and Peru. I have made many field trips to the Peruvian Andes to collect plant specimens and study the complex pollination system found in this plant group.

He took the photo you see above in 2018, while on one of those trips with his colleagues from the Botanical Museum and Garden, and it’s clear he’s passionate about plants in this genus.

Nasa picta is a rather widespread species, relatively common in Northern Peru. It is definitely one of the prettiest species, although Loasaceae in general are very showy plants, at least when flowering. Nevertheless, they have received rather little attention and have often been ignored by collectors due to their very painful stinging hairs that can cause intense pain and skin irritations. The common name used by the locals is Ortiga, which is derived from the stinging nettle (Urtica) which it’s lumped together with due to the stinging nature of these completely unrelated plant groups. Their painfulness and the often remote, high Andean habitats impede the scholarly study of these interesting plants, and their intriguing pollination biology has been unraveled only very recently. 

It turns out this genus has one of the most complex systems of reward partitioning and pollinator interaction in the plant kingdom. The plants perform a rapid stamen movement to present pollen in small packages to co-adapted pollinators that are rewarded with nectar. The pollen partitioning is thereby dynamically adapted to the actual pollinator behaviour and visitation frequency. I have published some papers dealing with different aspects of this interaction in the recent past.

Tilo (above, with Nasa picta behind him) has used iNaturalist for some time to check out what people have observed in his areas of study, and tells me 

[iNaturalist] is very helpful, especially in countries with a rich biodiversity and an unsatisfactorily resolved taxonomy for many groups of organisms. I started to upload my own photos only very recently but promise to add more in the near future. Since the focus of my field trips was very narrow I will likely be able to provide a number of unique observations that are particularly important in such an endeavour.


- Tilo’s work with the Nasa genus was featured in the New York Times back in 2019! 

- And you can read the paper “Flowers anticipate revisits of pollinators by learning from previously experienced visitation intervals” by Tilo and his colleagues here. It concerns Nasa poissoniana.

Posted on 04 de maio de 2021, 11:14 PM by tiwane tiwane

Comentários

Very nice, I love this subject. Thank you for spotlighting it iNat! Great work Dr. Henning.

Publicado por cesarcastillo quase 3 anos antes

Fantastic work Tilo !!!

Publicado por danplant quase 3 anos antes

Loasaceae are great! They all have such unusually complicated flowers!

Publicado por atronox quase 3 anos antes

These are really pretty up close. Working in Ecuador in and around the cloud forest we used to see these (or a closely related species) pretty often.

And yes, the stings do hurt.

Publicado por earthknight quase 3 anos antes

Fascinating!

Publicado por erikamitchell quase 3 anos antes

Thanks for choosing my observation and feature the Loasaceae and some of my works! Please don´t hesitate to contact me for any questions or requests (papers, determinations, etc.).

Best Regards Tilo

Publicado por then quase 3 anos antes

I love this article!

I'm curious, which is reported to be more painful: Urtica dioica or Nasa picta?

Do they contain similar chemical compounds in the stinging trichomes (histamine, acetylcholine, serotonin, tartaric acid, oxalic acid, and formic acid) ?

Thanks again for sharing this.

-Esteban

Publicado por ecoria quase 3 anos antes

Also, I encounter Urtica dioica quite frequently and have grown to love the plant as it contains many medicinal properties.

I wonder if Nasa picta has medicinal value to offer as well.

Thoughts?

Publicado por ecoria quase 3 anos antes

@estebancoria Nasa species are very different in their painfulness, picta is rather average and I´d say its comparable to a typical Urtica dioica (although this is a very widespread and variable taxon as well and e.g. density of stinging hairs differs dramatically between local morphs and subspecies/varieties). For the chemical compounds check the works of my former supervisor and his colleagues at the University Bonn (Maximilian Weigend) they have published a number of very interesting studies dealing with both families (Urticaceae and Loasaceae + others).

Loasaceae (mostly Caiophora,which is closely related genus of climbing plants) are locally important in the traditional Andean medicine and in the context of spiritual rituals. There definitely are some papers about their traditional usage (check Rainer W. Bussmanns works for example).

Best
Tilo

Publicado por then quase 3 anos antes

@then Excellent. Thank you for your response and recommendations! Looking forward to reading these.

Mil gracias!

-Esteban

Publicado por ecoria quase 3 anos antes

Wow! such an interesting plant!

Publicado por milo_hr quase 3 anos antes

I find myself attracted more to those species that exhibit such painful defense mechanisms. Very interesting finds!

Publicado por kalvaraceae quase 3 anos antes

I look forward to seeing more observations from you! Thank you!

Publicado por susanhewitt quase 3 anos antes

Wow, they are beautiful! I had never heard of this family of plants until today. Thank you for sharing your knowledge!

Publicado por lisa_bennett quase 3 anos antes

Very nice photo,

I have a doubt, is it possible to make a connection between observations, of a bee id in a flower and the flower id related to this bee id.
Because, current I saw that is it only possible to have independent ids in distinct records.

Best,

Antonio

Publicado por ajcaguiar quase 3 anos antes

I was surprised to find that this example of thigmonasty was not mentioned on Wikipedia, so I added it to the page using one of Dr. Henning's 2013 papers as a reference.

Publicado por greenscenery quase 3 anos antes

Fascinating and stunning plant! Stinging nettles...not a good way to make friends.

Publicado por amzapp quase 3 anos antes

@greenscenery thanks! The most comperehensive paper dealing with many different species of several genera in the Loasaceae is this one: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-018-32384-4
Unlike the ealier paper, this one is Open Acess, which might be favorable and therefore it would be worth mentioning it in the wikipedia article as well.

Publicado por then quase 3 anos antes

@greenscenery I´ve seen that there are several links to videos showing thigmonastic movements of other taxa. Here is a link to a video showing the thigmonastic stamen movement of a Loasoideae: https://static-content.springer.com/esm/art%3A10.1038%2Fs41598-018-32384-4/MediaObjects/41598_2018_32384_MOESM1_ESM.mp4
feel free to link to it in the wikipedia article.

Best Regards
Tilo

Publicado por then quase 3 anos antes

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