Dragons that Snap, Oil-drilling BeesAn Academy
botanist plays detective to piece together an evolutionary puzzle. Academy botanist
Kim Steiner is tracing the origin of this evolutionary oddity by studying
two groups of oil-producing flowers and a type of solitary bee in South
Africa. Flowers of the genus Diascia in the snapdragon family and a group
of oil-secreting orchids (subtribe Coryciinae) are often found in the
same habitat and are both pollinated by Rediviva bees. By documenting
which bee species visits what flowers, and later comparing this information
to the evolutionary history of both types of organisms, Steiner is hoping
to solve mysteries such as how oil-secretion developed in these flowers
and how easily bees can adapt to reap the benefits of the energy rich
oil.
Studying
these ecological relationships requires a lot of time in the field documenting
different bees visiting different oil-producing snapdragons and orchids
in different locations. Along the way, Steiner has described 13 new species
of Diascia and, along with Vincent Whitehead of the South African Museum
in Cape Town, has described 13 new species of Rediviva.
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