Broadly, I study how mate selection in plants acts to avoid inbreeding. I work with Heliconia tortuosa and its hummingbird pollinators, using a combination of field and camera data.

Current Work

Recently, my most exciting project revolves around a phenomenon called “Pollinator Recognition”, whereby Heliconia tortuosa distinguishes between its hummingbird visitors. Currently, we are trying to determine how exactly this happens. What is the mechanism behind the recognition? We hypothesize that some hummingbird species, namely green hermits and violet sabrewings, have a specific morphology and behaviour that inadvertently deposits a small amount of nectar on the stigma of the flower which hydrates the pollen and promotes pollen germination. We propose that this “nectar drop” is the distinguishing factor between pollinator species that allows for recognition.

Questions

In order to tackle big questions such as: could nectar movement by pollinators play a role in pollination? We have been using high-speed, high-resolution videos to slow down and analyze the detailed interaction between plants and hummingbirds.