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Tomato flowers are pollinated by bees that vibrate their thorax for pollen collecting, behavior known as buzz ‐pollination. The phenomenon is common and a specimen of the Neotropical stingless beeMelipona quadrifasciata is here depicted visiting a tomato flower for pollen collecting. While testing whether flower anthers exhibit optimal frequency for pollen release and whether flower bees tune their buzzes to match these frequencies, we recognized that neither bees nor plants are tuned to optimal pollen release frequencies (see pages 133 –142). Photo provided José Lino‐Neto.
Source: Insect Science - Category: Biology Tags: CONTENTS Source Type: research
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