Floral Deception Paper

Floral Deception
Plants have developed a plethora of mechanisms to prevent self-fertilization. One such mechanism is floral deception. Floral deception is when a flowering plant lacks floral rewards such as nectar, and must trick pollinators into coming and landing on them. Floral deception is especially common in the Orchidaceae family with about one-third of all orchids showing this trait and needing to use various forms of deception in order to achieve pollination (Johnson 2003). This evolved in plants because it offers increased fitness. This fitness comes by way of reducing the amount of physiological materials spent and leaving more resources for reproductive organ containing flowers and fruit. It also greatly discourages selfing and both encourages outcrossing and leads to pollen being spread farther which in turn avoids inbreeding depression (Jersáková 2005).
Another form of deception employed by angiosperms is sexual
It is hypothesized that this deception evolves from the interaction between a flower species and its pollinator that was once mutually beneficial. The pollinator received a reward such as nectar and the plant was pollinated by other flowers and its pollen was spread to other plants (Jin 2014). The relationship between the irid Watsonia densiflora s.l. and Philoliche aethiopica, a long-proboscid tabanid fly, is one such example of this type of mutualistic relationship. The iris produces nectar which the fly then comes and feeds on. When it flies away it carries with it carries pollen with it and spreads the genes of the flower it had fed on (Johnson 2006). As the nectar production slowly cuts off and eventually completely stops, the original pollinator still continues to visit the plant and transfer pollen even though the reward that brought it to the plant has since disappeared (Jin