Ceropegia pollinators. Ceropegia pollinators

Pollination by flies (Diptera) has been important to the diversification and ecology of the flowering plants, but is relatively neglected and poorly understood in contrast to pollination by other groups such as bees, butterflies and birds. Within the Apocynaceae the genera Ceropegia and Riocreuxia employ a strategy of temporarily trapping their pollinators, releasing them after a fixed, species-specific period of time, during which pollination and/or pollen removal occurs. This “trap flower” pollination system shows convergent evolution with unrelated species in families such as Araceae and Aristolochiaceae and fascinated Stefan Vogel for much of his career, leading to ground-breaking work on floral function in Ceropegia (Apocynaceae). More recent research on Ceropegia has built on this initial work and has resulted in some significant new findings in relation to the diversity and function of pollination systems within the genus. In this new study we extend the work of the latest broad analysis published by some of the authors (Ollerton et al., 2009 – Annals of Botany). This incorporates previously unpublished data from India and Africa, as well as recently published information, on the diversity of pollinators exploited by Ceropegia. The analyses are based on a more accurate phylogenetic understanding of the relationships between the major groups than has previously been available, and significantly widens the biogeographic scope of our understanding of fly pollination within the Apocynaceae.