Association of flower and pollinator activity in the Negev Desert, Israel

The seasonal abundance patterns of flowers and pollinators were not synchronized. No synchronization was found between blooming periods and activity periods of most flowers and pollinators associated in pollinating syndromes. Pollinators nevertheless generally foraged at the flowers associated with them in pollination syndromes, and bees partitioned flowers according to a flower tube-length and bee tongue-length hierarchy. The lack of synchrony between flowers and pollinators was explained as the result of unusually late rainfall within a generally unpredictable rainfall regime. The late rainfall "decoupled' the main flowering season from the emergence and activity period of the pollinators. This decoupling, however, did not affect the floral preferences of the different pollinators. -Authors