by Benjamin Lazarus (PhD student)
Over the past year, we have been gathering a bourgeoning collection of Melastome species housed in the Botanical Garden of Vienna … and we have been putting these new specimens to good use! Our new undergraduate student, Benjamin Fieber has been working with PhD student Ben Lazarus to do artificial buzzing experiments on a range of species from across the tropics such as Medinilla loranthoides (native to the Indian Ocean island, Reunion), Pleroma urvilleanum (originating in Brazil), and Heterotis rotundifolia (with a natural distribution across central and western Africa). These tests explore the behavior of pollen expulsion during bee mimetic vibrations and how this response varies across flower species and vibration conditions. These new species have also provided an opportunity for us to explore morphologically diverse anthers using CT scans. Fabian Polz and Manuela Villa Villegas have been using these scans to extract traits, such as resistance to bending, pore size, and thecal volume to gain insight into pollen release dynamics during buzzing. Finally, these new accessible poricidal flowers have given us an opportunity to fine tune our testing apparatus for the field. We have upgraded our pollen counting methodology, our visual anther tracking approach, and with our wonderful collaborators in the Csencsics lab at TU our artificial shaker. We are so excited to have such a wonderful study system right next door and we want to give a big thank you to everyone at the Botanic Garden who helps maintain and care for these fantastic plants. We also want to thank all of the other gardens across Vienna and Europe who contributed to the collection.