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Significance of insects as medicinal plants pollinators in Poland – analysis of Flora ojczysta 2004 botanical database
Significance of insects as medicinal plants pollinators in Poland – analysis
of Flora ojczysta 2004 botanical database
PIOTR MADANECKI*, J. RENATA OCHOCKA
Department of Biology and Pharmaceutical Botany
Medical University
Al. Gen. J. Hallera 107, 80-416 Gdańsk, Poland
*corresponding author: phone: +4858 3493214 (10), phone/fax: +4858 3493211,
e-mail: [email protected]
Summary
The aim of the study was to analyze the significance of insects as pollinators of medicinal
plants species occurring in natural state in Poland territory (some of them are also cultivated). Polish botanical database: Flora ojczysta 2004 was used as an analytical tool. Paper
includes brief description of selected flower features connected with pollination by insects
and their frequency in analyzed group of plant species. Study revealed great role of the
insects in pollination of medicinal plants occurring in Poland. Over 82% of analyzed medicinal plants species are pollinated by insects. Most common colors of flowers (white, yellow
and blue) suggest strong adaptation for honeybee (Apis mellifica) as a main pollinator. The
frequency of insects’ pollination is slightly more popular in group of medicinal plants species than in other species included in database (not used in medicine).
Key words: pollination, medicinal plants, insects
Insects play important role in life of plants. About 50% of insect species are
phytophagous [1]. They feed on living or dead plants. It is possible that plants
synthesize many compounds especially as repellents or poison against phytophagous insects [2-7]. Some of these compounds are used in medicine. From this
point of view insects are involved in evolution of medicinal plants and perhaps
are the main reason for producing secondary metabolites (it means that insects
feeding leaded to creation of medicinal plants). Anyhow, many species of insects
started to be dangerous pests in plantations of medicinal plants. Monocultures of
one plant species give them very good terms for living and reproduction. Sometimes, species of insects that were not yet considered as pests become pests on
the plantations of medicinal plants (eg. Aglais urticae L., Inachis io L. feeding on the
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P. Madanecki, JR. Ochocka
Urtica dioica L. [8]). On the other hand, insects play important role as predators
and pollinators, too. They started to be involved in pollination about 125–145
millions years ago. The long time of coevolution of plants and their pollinators
– insects, leaded to changes in flowers’ morphology and anatomy. Although the
evolution of flowers leading to use insects in pollination process is complicated
and goes independently in different groups of plants, some general features (color
of flower, morphological adaptations) may be used as indicators of pollination
connected with insects. Some work was done to estimate the importance of animal pollinators for plant species [9]. The analysis of artificial group of plants species such as medicinal plants seems to be of special interest. The aim of this study
is to estimate the significance of insects as pollinators in medicinal plants species
occurring in wild state in Poland (some of them are cultivated, too). Not only the
way of pollination was taken into consideration, but also some advanced morphological adaptations of flowers connected with pollinating insects were studied.
MATERIALS AND METHODS
The basic tool used for analysis was advanced botanical application Flora ojczysta 2004 [10], a unique computer botanical database used for identification
of plants occurring in Poland. System is divided into two parts: photo album and
botanical key with database of 1508 taxons (species, subspecies and forms). The
most interesting in botanical identification key module is ability to search species
of plants on the basis of over 800 features. Many of them are fuzzy features, e.g.
color or dimensions of flowers. The tolerance for fuzzy features may be set in
setup dialog box. The big database of species and its features may be used not
only for identification – it may be a powerful tool for statistical analysis as used in
this work. The database does not include species occurring in Poland in cultivation only, thus some species of popular medicinal plants cultivated in Poland are
absent. Some very rare species are not included too, but probably the database
will be expanded in future.
Flora ojczysta 2004 application [10] was used for statistical analysis with default
settings (default settings for fuzzy features tolerance were unchanged). The group
of species classified by authors of Flora ojczysta as medicinal plants (372 species)
was searched for species revealing selected features. Of course, in the case of
features connected with pollination by insects only subgroup of plants pollinated
by insects was taken into consideration. Then results were compared to results
obtained for all species included in database.
RESULTS
Flora ojczysta database [10] consists of information about 1508 species (subspecies, forms) of plants. There were 372 species classified as medicinal plants.
Significance of insects as medicinal plants pollinators in Poland – analysis of Flora ojczysta 2004 botanical database
Pollination by insects is a most frequent pollination way in both groups: medicinal plants species and all species included in database. About 75% of species present in database were classified as plants pollinated by insects. In the subgroup of
medicinal plants this proportion is even higher (82%, see Table 1, Fig. 1). As it can
be observed, the way of pollination is related to analyzed species’ family.
Ta b l e 1 .
Frequency of occurrence of different pollination ways (based on the botanic database Flora Ojczysta
2004 [10]).
no pollination
insect pollination
snail pollination
wind pollination
water pollination
self-pollination
medicinal plants (372 species)
11
(3.0%)
305
(82.0%)
1
(0.3%)
54
(14.5%)
1
(0.3%)
102
(27.4%)
all species in database (1508 species)
52
(3.4%)
1130
(75.0%)
5
(0.3%)
309
(20.5%)
5
(0.3%)
384
(25.5%)
Fig. 1. The number of insect pollinated species in medicinal plants classified to individual families.
Families including less than 4 species classified as medicinal plants are not shown (on the basis of
botanic database Flora Ojczysta 2004 [10]).
Zygomorph flowers may be considered as advanced adaptation for pollination
by animals (mainly insects). In the tested group of medicinal plants this adaptation
is present in 36% of species (only species pollinated by insects were taken into
consideration). In case of all plants pollinated by insects this proportion is similar
(about 39%). Detailed results are presented in Table 2.
Ta b l e 2 .
Frequency of zygomorph flowers presence (based on Flora Ojczysta 2004 [10]).
percentage of species producing
zygomorph flowers
medicinal plants pollinated by insects
(305 species)
all species pollinated by insects included
in database (1130 species)
110 (36.1%)
436 (38.6%)
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P. Madanecki, JR. Ochocka
The color of flowers is important for some pollinators (e.g. white, yellow and
blue are favorite colors for honeybee (Apis mellifica), which is a main pollinator
of many species). The analysis of flowers’ color reveals that above 90% of species
produce flowers in one of these colors. The results in medicinal plants and in all
insect pollinated plants are similar (Table 3).
Ta b l e 3 .
Frequency of white, yellow and blue flowers (based on Flora Ojczysta 2004 [10]).
insect pollinated medicinal plants (305 species)
flowers’ color
number of species
total
white
158
yellow
107
283 species (93%)
blue
18
all insect pollinated species included in database
(1130 species)
white
521
yellow
427
1032 species (91.3%)
blue
84
DISCUSSION
The results obtained show that 82% of analyzed medicinal plants species are
insect pollinated. The popularity of insect pollination is slightly more often in medicinal plants than in all plant species included in database (75%), probably due to
two interfering factors. One of them is a different pollination strategy observed in
individual plant families: some plant families do not use insects as pollinators or
use them not as extensively as others (fig. 1). The second is different percentage
of plants used as medicinal plants in individual plant families: many medicinal
plants belong to few families, which are especially rich sources of medicinal plants
(eg. Asteraceae, Apiaceae, Lamiaceae).
One of the most significant adaptations for insect pollination (in some cases
with use of other animals) is flower’s type of symmetry. Many insect pollinated
flowers changed their symmetry from radial to zygomorph [monosymmetric,
dorsiventral] in millions years of evolution. As it can be seen in results section,
dorsiventral symmetry of flowers is much less popular than insect connected pollination strategy. This fact may be explained by different adaptations to insect
pollination. Zygomorph flowers are only one from many ways for attracting insects. Slightly smaller percentage of this feature in medicinal plants may be related
to family specific adaptations (e.g. species belonging to Asteraceae family attract
insects by grouping small, frequently radial flowers into thick inflorescences and
do not produce large, one by one spaced, zygomorph flowers).
The last analyzed feature is color of flowers. As it was observed earlier, colors
of flowers are recognized by some insects. White, yellow and blue (favorite for
honeybee [11-13]) are very popular in both analyzed groups: insect pollinated
medicinal plants and all insect pollinated species included in database. This fact
is accordant with other observations: as it was established earlier the honeybee is
main pollinator in our climatic zone. Our results show that percentage of species
producing flowers in colors attracting honeybees is almost equal in both analyzed
Significance of insects as medicinal plants pollinators in Poland – analysis of Flora ojczysta 2004 botanical database
groups. Flowers of medicinal plants are visited by many species of insects but often only one of them is main pollinator. The evolution of flower led to production
of flowers attracting this main pollinator.
In general, obtained results may be caused by fact, that many plants classified
in Poland as medicinal belong to evolutionally advanced plant families, specializing in pollination by insects, especially adopted to use honeybee as a main
pollinator.
CONCLUSION
1. Insects play a very important role in medicinal plants’ pollination in Poland.
2. The colors of flowers preferred by honeybee (Apis mellifica) are very popular
– this may be an indirect evidence of important role of this species as a main
medicinal plants’ pollinator in Poland.
3. Flora ojczysta 2004 [10] is a unique botanical database, which can be used for
scientific analysis, especially useful is possibility of searching of species database on the basis of fuzzy features.
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Vol. 53 No 1 2007
P. Madanecki, JR. Ochocka
ZNACZENIE OWADÓW JAKO ZAPYLACZY ROŚLIN LECZNICZYCH W POLSCE NA
PODSTAWIE ANALIZY BOTANICZNEJ BAZY DANYCH FLORA OJCZYSTA 2004
PIOTR MADANECKI*, J. RENATA OCHOCKA
Katedra i Zakład Biologii Botaniki Farmaceutycznej
Akademia Medyczna w Gdańsku
Al. Gen. J. Hallera 107
80-416 Gdańsk
*autor, do którego należy kierować korespondencję:
tel.: +4858 3493214 (10) , tel./faks: +4858 3493211, e-mail: [email protected]
Streszczenie
Celem opracowania była ocena znaczenia owadów jako zapylaczy roślin leczniczych
występujących w stanie naturalnym na obszarze kraju (niektóre z nich są także uprawiane). Jako podstawowe narzędzie analizy została wykorzystana botaniczna baza danych
Flora ojczysta 2004.
W artykule wymieniono wybrane cechy kwiatów uważane za ich przystosowanie do zapylania przez owady i poddano analizie częstość ich występowania wśród gatunków zaklasyfikowanych przez twórców bazy danych Flora ojczysta jako rośliny lecznicze.
Analiza ujawniła bardzo ważną rolę owadów jako zapylaczy roślin leczniczych
występujących na terenie kraju. Ponad 82% gatunków roślin zaklasyfikowanych jako lecznicze jest zapylanych przez owady. Najczęściej spotykane barwy kwiatów: różne odcienie
barwy białej, żółtej i niebieskiej sugerują silną adaptację do wykorzystania pszczoły miodnej (Apis mellifica) jako głównego zapylacza. Odsetek gatunków wykorzystujących owady
jako zapylacze jest nieco wyższy wśród roślin zaklasyfikowanych jako rośliny lecznicze niż
wśród pozostałych gatunków roślin uwzględnionych w bazie.
Słowa kluczowe: zapylanie, rośliny lecznicze, owady