Flower-foraging insects and their pollen loads in mountain permanent grasslands
2016
Galliot, J N | Farruggia, A | Bérard, A | Chauveau, A | Blanchetête, A | Genoud, D | Brunel, D
Semi natural grasslands are considered as a vital habitat for wild pollinators, which in return con- tribute to preserve the floristic diversity of this environment. To study the interactions between pollinators and plants, flower-foraging insects were caught from beginning of May to end of June along walking transects in 6 mountain permanent grasslands in Cantal (France). We developed and test in parallel a method based on DNA barcoding analysis, allowing a quick identification of the insect and its pollen load at the same time. We collected thus 394 flower visitor insects, most of them belonging to Diptera (72 per cent) of which comprised 32 per cent Empididae and 20 per cent Syrphidae, and 20 per cent belonging to Hymenoptera of which 80 per cent were wild native and domestic bees. Three families of flowers (Asteraceae, Apiaceae and Ranunculaceae) comprised two thirds of the total flowering species from which the insects were collected. DNA barcoding of these insects showed that 87 per cent of the collected insects were carrying pollen and 45 per cent were carrying two genders of plants or more. Results suggest the important role of the Diptera as wild pollinators at this period in such mountain environment. Moreover, our results have demonstrated that the DNA barcoding is a powerful tool to study flower-for- aging insects and their pollens loads which will be very soon operational
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