Interactions of flower visitors with bitter gourd (Momordica charantia L.) and effects of right target and wrong target flower visits on plant reproduction
Ujjwal Layek, Sourabh Bisui, Prakash Karmakar

TL;DR
This study explores how flower visitors interact with bitter gourd plants and how different types of visits affect pollination and plant reproduction.
Contribution
The study identifies the role of 'wrong target' visits in pollination, which has been previously overlooked.
Findings
Apis cerana and other bee species were found to be the most effective pollinators of bitter gourd.
Wrong target visits still contributed to significant pollen deposition and successful fruit and seed production.
Most flower visitors, especially bees, made both right and wrong target visits to female flowers.
Abstract
Studying flower visitors, visitation patterns, and pollinator effectiveness can provide valuable insights into the interactions between plants and pollinators. Bitter gourd (Momordica charantia), a key vegetable crop, relies on flower visitors, especially pollinators. However, the specific role of wild pollinators and the impact of different visit types on bitter gourd pollination remain unclear. We aimed to uncover plant–pollinator interactions on the crop species. We recorded the flower visitors and their visitation patterns, categorising visits as right target when the visitor collected floral resources, and as wrong target when the visitor did not collect any resources from the flowers. We also determined the impacts of two types of flower visits on plant reproduction based on pollen deposition and the resulting fruit and seed sets after a single visit by different pollinators.…
Genes, proteins, chemicals, diseases, species, mutations and cell lines named across the full text — each resolved to its canonical identifier and authoritative record.
Click any figure to enlarge with its caption.
Figure 1
Figure 2
Figure 3
Figure 4
Figure 5
Figure 6
Figure 7Peer Reviews
No public reviews on file for this paper yet. If you reviewed it on a platform where reviews are public (OpenReview, ICLR, NeurIPS, ICML), you can paste yours below so the community can read it here.
Videos
No videos yet. Explain this paper in a talk, walkthrough, or lecture? Add one.
Taxonomy
TopicsPlant and animal studies · Plant Parasitism and Resistance · Insect and Pesticide Research
