![]() Infrequent visits by pollinators extend the time necessary to carry out the observations, making the identification of effective pollinators tedious. This can be due primarily to pollinators that quickly learn to avoid fraudulent orchids. ![]() Visually deceptive orchids in Western Australia show a variable range of reproductive success (0–48% fruit set) with several species experiencing a fruit set close to zero in some flowering seasons. The lack of nectar in deceptive orchids can lead to low visitation rates of pollinators and pollination success, up to 30% lower relative to rewarding orchids. The approach can be used for observing pollinator behavioural patterns and confirming effective pollinators for food deceptive species with low insect visitation rates. We showed that the proposed method greatly enhances pollinator attractiveness in food deceptive systems with very low pollination rates, and we compared its efficiency with other similar methods. We compared pollinaria removal (as an indicator of pollination success) in naturally growing orchids with pollinaria removal in arrays of orchid flowers in the same sites. Arrays of orchid flowers were placed and moved systematically in proximity to model plants, resulting in rapid attraction of the pollinators of D. We used an orchid of southwest Australia, Diuris brumalis (Orchidaceae), that visually mimics model plants belonging to the genus Daviesia (Faboideae). Here, for the first time, we describe in detail and validate a simple and effective method that extends previous approaches to increase the effectiveness of pollination studies of food deceptive orchids. ![]() Pollination mechanisms in food deceptive plants are often difficult to assess, as visitation frequency by insects requires numerous hours of field observations to ascertain. Floral deception has been observed in several genera in angiosperms, but is most common in the Orchidaceae.
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