Fire, food and sexual deception in the neighbourhood of some Australian orchids

Abstract

The effective use of prescribed fire in biodiversity conservation is currently inhibited by a limited understanding of fire effects on ecosystem processes such as pollination. Orchids inhabiting fire-prone landscapes are likely to be particularly sensitive because they often exhibit highly specialized pollination systems and provide no reward to pollinators, making them dependent on co-flowering heterospecifics to attract and support pollinators. We investigated the hypothesis that fire-driven changes in the local abundance of rewarding heterospecific flowers influence pollination in two rewardless Australian orchid species, Diuris maculata sensu lato and Caladenia tentaculata. Diuris macula..