Mutualisms involve cooperation, but also frequently involve conflict. Plant-pollinator mutualisms are no exception. To facilitate animal pollination, flowering plants often offer pollen (their male gametes) as a food reward. Since plants benefit by maximizing pollen export to conspecific flowers, we might expect plants to cheat on pollen rewards. In intersexual floral mimicry, rewarding pollen-bearing male flowers (models) are mimicked by rewardless female flowers (mimics) on the same plant. Pollinators should therefore learn to avoid the unrewarding mimics. Plants might impede such learning by producing phenotypically variable flowers that cause bees to generalize among models and mimics during learning. In this laboratory study, we used partially artificial flowers (artificial petals, live reproductive parts) modeled after Begonia odorata to test whether variation in the size of rewarding male flowers (models) and unrewarding female flowers (mimics) affected how quickly bees learned
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March 16, 2021 |
Tom Perry
On the basketball court, Katie McIlroy ’21 (Circleville, Ohio) understands the importance of being coached and motivated to succeed.
The Economics and Political Science major realized recently that the same approach works just as well in the classroom.
While conducting undergraduate research and writing her paper on “How do Misery Index Levels Impact Income Inequality within the United States?” she learned that mentoring by a faculty member can coax the best out of a student and her paper was selected to be presented virtually at the annual MBAA International Conference, which is scheduled for March 24-26.
“I was thrilled when I found out my paper was selected to be presented at the MBAA International Conference,” McIlroy said. “Dr. (Bizuayehu) Bedane had mentioned to me multiple times that I had the potential to be selected for this honor, and it’s almost serving as the culmination of my four years at Marietta College. I am proud