Resilience of floral scent emission after florivory

Throughout evolutionary time, florivory has always represented an important source of selective pressure on flower evolution. When feeding, florivores remove corolla portions and undoubtedly change floral visual traits; however, we are in the early stages of understanding the effects of florivory on floral olfactory signalling. Florivores may jeopardize floral scent emission by feeding on flower parts responsible for volatile synthesis/emission, or by inducing plant physiological responses that alter floral scent. Thus, after florivory, flowers may no longer attract pollinators or might even repel them due to local short-term changes in floral scent emission. Here, we investigate whether damage by florivores alters the amount and composition of floral scent. We describe natural florivory patterns and anatomically characterize the corolla portions potentially involved in scent emission in seven plant species pollinated by bees, hummingbirds, hawkmoths, or butterflies, which have diverse florivores, in a neotropical savanna. Moreover, we performed natural experiments to test whether florivory leads to short-term local changes in floral scent phenotype. We found that even when florivores consumed 15% of the corolla portions with anatomical scent-emitting features, there was no reduction in total amount of floral scent, except in a hawkmoth-pollinated species, which showed a reduction in scent emission although only 3% of the osmophore-bearing areas were consumed. Florivory did not affect scent composition in any species. Our data suggest a stability in post-florivory scent emission, which may guarantee the maintenance of pollinator visitation regardless of florivory, indicating a resilience of natural systems with multiple and simultaneous interactions.