Talk:Ophrys apifera

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Evolution of mimicry
I assume that the bee orchid has evolved to look like a bee to attract pollinating bees. But the article doesn't say so. Could someone who knows, comment? William M. Connolley 21:35, 15 September 2005 (UTC)
 * Darwin explained this in his book "The various contrivances by which orchids are fertilized by insects" (1862). He explains the great variety of orchids as an adaptation to their pollinators (mostly insects). This extreme specialisation gives them an almost unique status among all other plants (see the article Orchidaceae). They have built conspicuous flowers to attract insects. I' ve also explained the concept of 'pseudocopulation' in the article Ophrys. Darwin also concluded that allogamy (cross-fertilisation) is in most cases favourable to autogamy (self-fertilisation).

Pollination of Ophrys apifera happens by attracting sexually excited males, lured by visible cues (probably mostly in UV-light) and volatile chemicals (there are probably more than 100 different compounds involved). After pseudocopulation, duped male bees quickly learn to recognize the scent of visited flowers and avoid mating with them again. However, they visit flowers of the same species on a different plant. This means, that the Ophrys apifera has learnt to vary the different components of the chemical compounds, mostly saturated esters and aldehydes. This gives them a high degree of variation in their odour and increases the likelihood of being pollinated. Such an evolution of chemical variation must have taken a long time to be perfected. JoJan 08:51, 16 September 2005 (UTC)

Need photo
We need a photo of a bee trying to mate with a flower. Richard001 03:41, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

Caption taxobox image
According to the World Checklist of Monocotyledons (Royal Botanical Gardens, Kew), the given caption Ophrys apifera var. aurita (Moggr.) Gremli, Neue Beitr. Fl. Schweiz 4: 31 (1887) is a synonym of the accepted Name : Ophrys apifera Huds., Fl. Angl.: 340 (1762). JoJan 19:13, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

Orchid/Bee image comparison request
As I am no longer a male bee, I am having some difficulty recalling the exact female shape to which I was supposed to be attracted. My appreciation of these orchids is therefore hampered.

Could you kindly post a side-by-side comparison of two carefully chosen images, one of a bee orchid from the preferred direction it might be approached by a bee, the other of a bee that it might be mistaken for?

It may be quite worthwhile to post several comparisons, not just one. Again, different possible angles of observation & approach could be a factor.

Knowledge of bee vision may be helpful. As I recall, I did not see colors & shapes the same way as a human would. Hasn't someone done a more realistic comparison? Perhaps a link to an external site would help. A loaned image with a link-footnote attached might lure such a site to, well, loan an image to us. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Parsiferon (talk • contribs) 22:22, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

Distribution?
Having encountered my first Bee Orchid I came along here to compare my findings. The assertion that it is only found in Wales is questionable as I have seen a colony of over 80 plants in south Wiltshire, (yes, I know, no original research) and at no more than 85 metres above sea level. Am I lucky or is the habitat description a little too specific or out of date?. I will investigate a bit more. Richard Avery (talk) 15:43, 25 July 2011 (UTC)
 * I notice one of the sources listed is "Pignatti S. - Flora d'Italia". I wonder if the assertion about being commonest above 3,000 m applies to Italy or in other southern parts of the plant's range. This shows how useful line-by-line footnoted sourcing can be.William Avery (talk) 19:28, 1 August 2011 (UTC)

xkcd
I heard from xkcd that the kind of bee this plants attracts is extinct, so finding a picture of the female bee may be impossible. 76.179.185.119 (talk) 21:32, 2 September 2013 (UTC)


 * I came here via xkcd too. It seems to me that the article contradicts this claim. --Ørjan (talk) 22:37, 2 September 2013 (UTC)
 * Plus one for xkcd--MarsInSVG (talk) 19:45, 19 September 2013 (UTC)


 * I haven't been able to find any evidence that anybody (prior to xkcd) has claimed the pollinator is extinct. However, interest in the pollination of this plant goes back at least to Darwin, and it's possible that somebody previously has hypothesized that the pollinator is extinct (perhaps somebody working in a portion of the plants range where pollinators are absent). I added a reference for there being living pollinators. xkcd is incorrect. Plantdrew (talk) 01:16, 3 September 2013 (UTC)


 * I wouldn't say that xkcd is incorrect. Maybe the comic is set in the far future. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 134.106.146.36 (talk) 12:37, 3 September 2013 (UTC)

If xkcd is wrong, we should explicitly say so. Work into the text something like "the webcomic xkcd incorrectly stated that the flowers pollinating bee is long extinct." Ego White Tray (talk) 17:34, 3 September 2013 (UTC)
 * Is it our job to correct xkcd? No, it's Randall's. I'm not sure this needs to be in our article. Daniel Case (talk) 18:10, 6 September 2013 (UTC)
 * I have removed the note from the article (on the grounds that xkcd is not a botany website). See WP:XKCD. - Mike Rosoft (talk) 04:49, 8 September 2013 (UTC)
 * And I put it back. It's not a botany website, sure, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't attempt to correct its errors. We spend a huge amount of time debunking all kinds of pseudosciences (I was just reading about intelligent design), and no one would call any of those proponents "botany websites". Since xkcd has a reputation for accurate science, normally skeptical people are likely to be fooled, so we should set them straight. Ego White Tray (talk) 04:50, 20 September 2013 (UTC)
 * Removed again. See Xkcd_in_popular_culture - the problem is not whether people might be fooled, but whether xkcd is so significant as to itself warrant inclusion in the wikipedia article of everything that happens to have once been mentioned in a comic.  The substantive content of the article is sufficient on its own to correct the error, for anyone who is interested. Daniel (talk) 11:42, 2 October 2013 (UTC)

Doomed?
What about xkcd's implication that this flower is doomed for extinction? Is this also false? Ego White Tray (talk) 17:45, 3 September 2013 (UTC)
 * I don't have much besides synthesis and original research at this point, but this appears to be false too. I haven't found any claims that it is threatened/endangered throughout its range (it is threatened in some countries, e.g. Bulgaria, Croatia). The IUCN doesn't have a listing for this species, although several other species of Ophrys are listed. Circumstantial evidence to be sure, but there doesn't appear to be any concern among the experts that the plant is in imminent danger of extinction globally.
 * Major synthesis here, but I came across a source mentioning that O. apifera has the northern-most range of any Ophrys. I suspect that, contrary to the scenario portrayed in xkcd, this plants ability to self-pollinate is an adaptation that has allowed it to spread beyond the natural range of its pollinators. That's my unsourced speculation, but I'm still hoping to find a source that at least supports there being a difference between self-pollination rates in the northern and southern parts of its range. Plantdrew (talk) 18:57, 3 September 2013 (UTC)
 * As Self-pollination mentions "The disadvantages of self-pollination come from a lack of variation that allows no adaptation to the changing environment or potential pathogen attack. [...] The genetic defects in the plant cannot be eliminated." So in that sense, yes, on an evolutionary timescale (assuming it exclusively self-pollinates) it will eventually be out competed by other species that can adapt to the environment, evolve defenses against pathogens, and remove genetic defects. All exclusive self-pollinators are doomed. (Of course, assuming modern cosmology is correct about the heat death of the universe technically all species are doomed, but that is maybe a little existential for an article about an orchid.) Nolandda (talk) 02:14, 5 September 2013 (UTC)
 * But, of course, it's not exclusively self-pollinating. The self-pollinators in the north do receive diversity from the bee-pollinators in the south, who help spread this diversity northward. Ego White Tray (talk) 04:14, 5 September 2013 (UTC)
 * I'm not a botanist or an apiologist, so I will defer to the experts, but Forage (honey bee) suggests that bees only travel about 4 miles from their hives. That would imply a very slow movement of genetic material northward (maximum of about 8 miles per season). There may also be a northern limit to the pollinator's range above which no genetic material travels. Nolandda (talk) 13:16, 27 September 2013 (UTC)

Remark on the name
The scientific name is bad Latin: "apifera" when applied to a plant does not mean "bee-bearing", but "bee-bringing". "Bee-bearing" is "apigera". The suffix -fer may mean "-bearing" only when applied to human beings (e.g. signifer, a man, of course). -212.87.13.78 (talk) 17:14, 3 September 2013 (UTC)
 * Maybe, but unfortunately that name has stuck. One would like botanists to be on point in their Latin, but all the scientific name has to do is distinguish the species from other ones. It doesn't have to be totally correct. Daniel Case (talk) 18:11, 6 September 2013 (UTC)
 * OP above isn't saying that the Latin name is wrong (after all, the flower does bring bees), s/he is saying that the unsourced explanation of the etymology is wrong. The etymology should say "bee-bringing" unless there is a source for "bee-bearing." &mdash; Sam 63.138.152.168 (talk) 16:55, 12 September 2013 (UTC)
 * The Latin name is wrong, because the flower does not 'bring' (i.e. create, yield, produce) bees, and that is what apifera means, when applied to a plant. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.205.167.254 (talk) 11:57, 27 October 2016 (UTC)

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xkcd 2
The citation for the claim that xkcd is wrong is a random person's Google Plus post, and the post itself refers back to Wikipedia. Whether it's correct or not apparently remains up for debate, but either way it needs a better source or it should be removed. We know that the Eucera longicornis pollinates it, so xkcd is at least wrong there, but I have not been able to find out if the original bee that it evolved to look like has gone extinct. Also, as per the first section about xkcd on this talk page, perhaps it shouldn't be mentioned at all. — dorianha bogelund  «talk»  12:19, 16 February 2019 (UTC)
 * There's no point in mentioning and then debunking xkcd. Omit it entirely. Plantdrew (talk) 05:15, 17 February 2019 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the help, Plantdrew. :)  — dorianha bogelund   «talk»  07:07, 17 February 2019 (UTC)