Co-occurrence and phenological niche separation in rodent pollinated Proteaceae

Cowan, Oliver

Co-occurrence and phenological niche separation in rodent pollinated Proteaceae

Bachelor Thesis

2010

Publisher

University of Cape Town

Department

Department of Biological Sciences

Faculty

Faculty of Science

Abstract

Despite the numerous studies regarding rodent pollination in the Cape Floristic Region in the last few decades, little or no work has been done on patterns of co-occurrence and flowering phenology. The presence of three potentially rodent-pollinated Protea species at Fernkloof Nature Reserve, two of which were observed to co-occur, facilitated the following questions: i) are P. cordata, P. scabra and P. angustata therophilous? ii) do therophilous species co-exist at a fine scale? iii) do they have the same pollinator? iv) do they exhibit staggered flowering phenology? The floral characteristics of the study species suggest they were rodent pollinated and that the co-occurring species, P. cordata and P. scabra, would have staggered flowering phenologies. All three of the species' pollen was found in the faeces of Acomys subspinosus, the shared pollinator, while the phenological data provided the first empirical evidence of staggered flowering phenologies between fine scale, sympatric therophilous Protea species.

Keywords

Botany

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