The members of the genus Ophrys are the "bee" orchids. They have no nectar and so have cunningly developed their flowers to resemble insects such as bees, flies or spiders feeding on a flower. When the attracted insect is on the flower, the pollen rubs across their back, to be carried away when they leave.
I always mentally trip over anthropomorphic descriptions of evolutionary processes. Plants, not being sentient, cannot cunningly develope anything. Yet, what is the scientific explanation behind the development of a plant that resembles an exact species of bee in such a way that the male bees are attracted to said plant and accidentally pollinate it in a frustrated attempt at some bee nooky? How does a species over time change so that it exhibits such exact physical features such as color, texture, shape and size when said species does not even have the correct sensing organs to determine any of these properties?
I am confessing my ignorance of science here. What's the explanation and am I allowing myself to look at this all wrong. Bee orchids have always boggled my mind.
This flower originally started out as a nectar producing flower. Its bud, so to speek, randomly developed a bee-like characteristic (the hair, probably) that got the bee to spend more time with it, allowing the flower to get by with less nectar, until eventually, the flower could get by with no nectar at all.
Remember that bees (or anything with compound eyes) don't see shapes very well. So that's the last thing that needs to evolve, here - it just needs the bee to make a close-up tactile inspection, and its job is done. Those plants that do a better job will be better at reproducing, etc.
It's probably because nectar production is valuable, and would ideally only be consumed by the plant, so attracting insects in another way would be better.
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Perhaps there's an anti-herbivore component in this, as well? After all, I wouldn't want to eat a flower with a bee on it.
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chaoschristian wrote:[snip]
I always mentally trip over anthropomorphic descriptions of evolutionary processes. Plants, not being sentient, cannot cunningly develope anything. Yet, what is the scientific explanation behind the development of a plant that resembles an exact species of bee in such a way that the male bees are attracted to said plant and accidentally pollinate it in a frustrated attempt at some bee nooky? How does a species over time change so that it exhibits such exact physical features such as color, texture, shape and size when said species does not even have the correct sensing organs to determine any of these properties?
I am confessing my ignorance of science here. What's the explanation and am I allowing myself to look at this all wrong. Bee orchids have always boggled my mind.
Evolution occurs without the conscious approval of the species in question. The plant does not have to notice that it looks enticing to bees for it to evolve; what matters it that the bees notice it. If some ancestor of these plants had a mutation that made it look like a nectar-filled plant, bees would examine it and spread its pollen around. This would give that plant and its offspring an advantage over its relatives that don't attract bees. Thus, the species would evolve even though, if the plants had minds, they would have no idea what was going on.
Likewise, in another thread here about the Cambrian explosion, it was discussed that eyeless creatures would still develope camoflauge to fool the early sighted creatures. In the exact same way as these plants, they do not have to "choose" to get these characteristics; they just happen, and give the species an evolutionary advantage.
Evolution requires no consent or understanding among the creatures evolving. If the species mutates in some way so as to be more likely to procreate or survive longer, then this mutation will be beneficial, and will survive with greater prevalance then the original.
Don't think of it as a species actively trying to become better. Just think of it as... a species, with mutations that both increase and decrease it's ability to survive, and then every now and again, the lower ones are just swept off the slate.
Since it has no nectar, would the insects eventually get used to going to it and getting nothing? Or Is this prevented due to the short life spans and, I guess, lack of profound intelligence? I don't know.
A lot of insect behavior is "hard-wired" - if the insect receives a certain stimulus, it performs a certain action. If, for example (and I'm being a bit silly, but it's early and easier than trying to come up with a perfect real example) seeing a red circle made a particular insect stand on its head, then every time it sees a red circle it will stand on its head. It doesn't matter if it's the "real" signal - perhaps on a flower petal - or a human scientist with a red sharpie and a piece of paper. See red circle = stand on head.
The same with flowers mimicking insect cues. If a certain scent attracts bees it will attract bees whether there is nectar at the end of the trail or not. If a certain shape of petal/flower/whatever induces a bee to stick its head in a hole looking for nectar and pollen the bee will do that. If there's no nectar, well, dry holes do occur (perhaps another bee or insect beat it to the punch). Although once nectar is found a bee will stick to that variety of flower until the juice runs out, until a "motherlode" is found it will visit pretty much everything, and thus might visit a number of "dry" flowers in its search.
Insect copulatory cues (isn't that a polite phrase?) run along the same lines - see correct shape, commence fucking. In fact, some plants have got these cues so down pat that a male of a particular species might perfer the plant over a real female insect. The poor bugs can't help themselves, they're programmed that way. And, of course, the better plant mimics leave more offspring, so over time the decoys become more and more refined.
What it comes down to is that insects have a very severely limited learning capacity. Bees do have ability in this regard, but it is extremely limited and probably more flexible in regards to navigation than to pollen gathering behavior.
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Well, I understand that evolutionary processes do not need the concurrance of the species involved. That's not the hiccup here.
But I think, after reading all the responses, I've sorted perhaps some of it out.
Perhaps the problem is that I was assigning meaningfulness to something that statistically is in fact meaningless.
To explain - flower looks like bee, bee looks like flower. Flower needs bee to reproduce, bee needs flower to eat. Now I look at all the flowers and bees and notice that it's only this one pair that are so remarkably matched. My initial, unreasoned, reaction is to think - wow! That's so fantastic that random mutations could not explain how that flower and that bee look so much alike. There must be a creator.
However, my error lies in seeing the event as fantastic, or unique and then assiging some meaning or significance to it. The problem with that is that I'm not seeing all the events over the course of time that would show me that perhaps this event is not so fantastic and does not have the meaning I assign to it. In others words, statistically speaking, the bee and flower look alike - so what?
You have to also remember that though the CURRENT flowers and bees need one another implicitly, that that does not mean it was always the case. If either the bee or flower originally were more "jack of all trades" organisms that got by on that, then later, there was a survival advantage which made them specialise, more and more, to one another, you would eventually have an ecology where they are entirely interdependent.
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To note : there's a very good reason for flowers to specialize - it increases the chances of them pollinating successfully. This is because if an insect gets pollen from Species A and then goes to Pollen B, neither flower benefits. Thus, by narrowing the insects that can get in, they increase their chances of getting pollinated. (The flowers that specialize would get favored by the insect species that can use them because it would be much less likely that it would be visited by another insect before, and thus be full.)
In the case of the Orchid, I would hazard a guess and say that it started out as a normal flower. Eventually it caters to wasps by having some sort of sexual attraction (Food AND sex!) which gives it high specialization. (While I don't know the main criteria wasps use, I do know that cane toads (a verebrate and thus 'smart') would happily hump flatted toads, little bumps of mud, and shoes.) Eventually the sexual attraction sells better than the food portion, which eventually just goes away.
