Many animals are known to correlate their activities with the lunar phases, but for plants, such associations are rarely described. The researcher Catarina Rydin and the PhD student Kristina Bolinder have now discovered an unexpected connection.
- We accidentally discovered that pollination in the gymnosperm Ephedra foeminea is correlated with the full moon. Such a link has to our knowledge never been demonstrated before.
The plant is pollinated by flies and moths and nocturnal insects may utilize the moon to navigate in the dark. Further, the spectacular reflection of the full-moonlight in the pollination drops probably attracts the insects to the cones. However, the related but wind-pollinated Ephedra distachya does not correlate pollination with the full moon.
Read the full article here:
http://rsbl.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/11/4/20140993
