Marc Gibernau

• PhD
• Senior Researcher at French National Centre for Scientific Research

Background In any ecosystems, seasonality is a key factor conditioning the temporal variation on an annual scale in combination with differences in the organism phenology. This seasonality is marked in the Mediterranean Region with four contrasting seasons: a hot, dry summer, a mild winter and sometimes a very rainy spring and autumn. With a large...

With around 6000 species and 200 genera worldwide, hoverflies (Syrphidae, Diptera) are important and a diverse group of pollina-tors, second to wild bees (Hymenoptera). Here, we studied the diversity of Syrphidae visiting flowers in low shrubland maquis environments of three compensation areas in the Ajaccio region (Corsica, France). A total of 138...

Pollination is a key tenet of ecosystem sustainability and food security, but it is threatened by climate change. While many studies investigated the response of plant‐pollination traits to temperature, few attempted multifactorial and integrative approaches with multiple floral traits. We determined which plant‐pollination traits were disrupted by...

Helichrysum italicum (Roth) G. Don is a Mediterranean medicinal plant with great potential in the cosmetics, culinary and pharmaceutical fields due to its unique bioactive compounds. Its recent introduction into agroecosystems has enhanced the exploitation of genetic diversity in natural populations, although limited molecular markers have made thi...

Wildfire pressure involves today to implement silvicultural practices that provide a good compromise between reducing fire risk and maintaining ecological functioning. Thinning reduces tree density and low branches, but results in the deposition of a considerable biomass of woody debris on the ground (up to 4800 g m² in this study). They can be eli...

The Mediterranean Region represents a biodiversity hotspot with a high rate of endemism. In its western part, Corsica Island is notable in terms of biodiversity due to its large surface and its large range of habitats from seaside to alpine biotopes. Amongst diverse groups, insects, notably the main orders of pollinators composed of Coleoptera, Hym...

Background The Mediterranean Region represents a biodiversity hotspot with a high rate of endemism. In its western part, Corsica Island is notable in terms of biodiversity due to its large surface and its large range of habitats from seaside to alpine biotopes. Amongst diverse groups, insects, notably the main orders of pollinators composed of Cole...

Angiosperms are the cornerstone of most terrestrial ecosystems and human livelihoods1,2. A robust understanding of angiosperm evolution is required to explain their rise to ecological dominance. So far, the angiosperm tree of life has been determined primarily by means of analyses of the plastid genome3,4. Many studies have drawn on this foundation...

Wild aromatic plants present high intra- and inter-population chemical polymorphisms which are of great ecological and economic interest; however, the factors influencing the phytochemical diversity of aromatic plants remain still unexplored for many species. Here, Teucrium marum L. (Lamiaceae) has been studied, a plant endemic to the western Medit...

Seven essential oil samples of two endemic species of Malagasy sage, Salvia sessilifolia Baker and Salvia leucodermis Baker, were investigated via GC(RI), GC-MS and 13C NMR spectrometry. In total, 81compounds were identified accounting for 93.5% to 98.7% of the total composition. The main constituents for the both species were (E)-β-caryophyllene (...

Premise: Recent phylogenetic studies of the Araceae have confirmed the position of the duckweeds nested within the aroids, and the monophyly of a clade containing all the unisexual flowered aroids plus the bisexual-flowered Calla palustris. The main objective of this work was to better resolve the deep phylogenetic relationships among the main lin...

We provide a characterization of the floral scent chemistry of nine species of Philodendron present in French Guiana. The scent samples were obtained by dynamic headspace, in situ in French Guiana, or from plants in the living aroid collection at the Botanical Garden of the University of Brasilia. Overall, we identified 43 volatile organic compound...

Different species of Cyclocephala scarab beetles (Scarabaeidae, Dynastinae) perform key functional roles in both natural and agricultural systems, such as the cycling of organic matter and pollination, while also being known as destructive pests both as immatures and adults. Therefore, the identification of biological parameters is crucial for defi...

Dioecious plants generally display sexual dimorphism in male and female floral traits, potentially attracting slightly different pollinator communities. The sharing of common floral visitors between male and female flowers and their timing of visits to both sexes is of critical importance to ensure plant's reproductive success. Palm inflorescences...

Floral scent is vital for pollinator attraction and varies among and within plant species. However, little is known about how inter-individual variation in floral scent affects the abundance and composition of floral visitor assemblages within populations. Moreover, for deceptive plants it is predicted that intra-population variation in scent can b...

Deceptive pollination often involves volatile organic compound (VOC) emissions that mislead insects into performing non-rewarding pollination. Among deceptively pollinated plants, Arum maculatum is particularly well-known for its potent dung-like VOC emissions and specialized floral chamber, which traps pollinators—mainly Psychoda phalaenoides and...

Insect-pollinated plants often release complex mixtures of floral scents to attract their pollinators. Yet scent compounds eliciting physiological or behavioural responses in pollinators have only been identified in few plant species. The sapromyiophilous aroid Arum maculatum releases a highly diverse dung-like scent with overall more than 300 diff...

Among the 44 European Psychoda species identified to date, we expected to observe in Corsica species with large distribution ranges and/or that are frequent in adjacent territories (i.e. south mainland France, mainland Italy, and Sardinia). Each studied specimen was morphologically identified and then barcoded using cytochrome c oxidase subunit I (...

Citrus phylogeny is currently based on genome analysis using molecular markers and sequencing. The 7 pure genetic groups that gave rise to all cultivated citrus underlie the diversity of citrus accessions originating from Asia. However, there are wild citrus forms whose phylogenetic position is unknown, such as mountain citron (Citrus halimii B.C....

Geographical variation in abundance and composition of pollinator assemblages may result in variable selection pressures among plant populations and drive plant diversification. However, there is limited knowledge on whether differences in local visitor and pollinator assemblages are the result of site-specific strategies of plants to interact with...

Citrus phylogeny is currently based on genome analysis using molecular markers and sequencing. The 7 pure genetic groups that gave rise to all cultivated citrus underlie the diversity of citrus accessions originating from Asia. However, there are wild citrus forms whose phylogenetic position is unknown, such as mountain citron (Citrus halimii B.C....

Floral scent is a key mediator in plant-pollinator interactions. However, little is known to what extent intraspecific scent variation is shaped by phenotypic selection, with no information yet in deceptive plants. In this study, we collected inflorescence scent and fruit set of the deceptive moth fly-pollinated Arum maculatum L. (Araceae) from six...

Flowering plants emit complex bouquets of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) to mediate interactions with their pollinators. These bouquets are undoubtedly influenced by pollinator‐mediated selection, particularly in deceptively‐pollinated species that rely on chemical mimicry. However, many uncertainties remain regarding how spatially and temporall...

The Papeda Citrus subgenus includes several species belonging to two genetically distinct groups, containing mostly little-exploited wild forms of citrus. However, little is known about the potentially large and novel aromatic diversity contained in these wild citruses. In this study, we characterized and compared the essential oils obtained from p...

Floral scent is a key mediator in plant-pollinator interactions; however, little is known to what extent intraspecific scent variation is shaped by phenotypic selection, with no information yet in deceptive plants. We recorded 291 scent compounds in deceptive moth fly-pollinated Arum maculatum from various populations north vs. south of the Alps, t...

In French Guiana, Philodendron fragrantissimum (Hook.) G.Don was specifically pollinated by a single species of night-active cyclocephaline scarab, Cyclocephala simulatrix Höhne. Its inflorescences exhibited short-lasting anthesis (~30 h) and characteristic floral traits such as floral thermogenesis, edible/nutritious floral tissues, and profuse fl...

The pollination ecology of Symplocarpus foetidus (L.) W. Salisbury was studied in a seasonally forested flooded bog in Québec (Canada) in 2008 and 2009. The protogynous anthesis duration ranged from 15 to 20 days with, chronologically, a female phase of about 5 days, a bisexual phase of 2 days, and a male phase of 9 days. The spadix temperature dif...

The meadow spittlebug, Philaenus spumarius (L.) (Hemiptera: Aphrophoridae), is the main vector in Europe of the recently detected plant pathogen bacterium Xylella fastidiosa Wells et al . (Xanthomonadales: Xanthomonadaceae). While the ecology of continental populations is well documented, nothing is known about the insular populations of P. spumari...

Premise: Floral rewards are essential in understanding floral function and evolution of the relationships between flowers and pollinators. Whether sugars are present in stigmatic exudates in Anthurium and whether it has floral nectaries have remained controversial because of the scarcity of structural studies. To solve these questions, we investig...

Spadix temperature was measured in Schismatoglottis ahmadii, S. lowiae, S. sp. nov., and S. wallichii. The anthesis of S. lowiae, S. sp. nov., and S. wallichii started just after dawn but in S. ahmadii, it began two hours later. Spadix temperatures of the four species increased at the beginning of each of the two successive flowering mornings, corr...

Floral odor is a complex trait that mediates many biotic interactions, including pollination. While high intraspecific floral odor variation appears to be common, the ecological and evolutionary drivers of this variation are often unclear. Here, we investigated the influence of spatially and temporally heterogeneous pollinator communities on floral...

The cosmetic and fragrance industry largely exploits citrus essential oils (EOs) because of their aromatic properties. EO compositions are complex and differ between fruit pericarp (PEO) and leaf (LEO). Citrus fruit grow in many countries under very different climates. Seventeen citrus cultivars were selected and their similarities between the two...

Hemorrhoids become pathological when swollen or inflamed. They can be very painful and occasionally cause serious anemia as they often break and hardly heal. Orthodox medicine usually treats hemorrhoids through surgery combined with medication containing the flavonoid diosmin. Our previous ethnobotanical and ethnopharmacological research in Bulgari...

Low temperatures during winter are one of the main constraints for citrus crop. Polyploid rootstocks can be used for improving tolerance to abiotic stresses, such as cold stress. Because the produced fruit are seedless, using triploid scions is one of the most promising approaches to satisfy consumer expectations. In this study, we evaluated how th...

Cymbopogon schoenanthus (L.) Sprengel (Poaceae) is an aromatic plant whose aerial parts and rhizome produced an essential oil with pleasant odor. A chemical variability has been observed depending of the countries where the plant grows wild, including Algeria. The chemical compositions of 24 oil samples isolated from plants harvested in Central Alg...

In this study, the chemical variation of the essential oils of the endemic species Origanum elongatum has been studied in its biogeographical context. Essential oils of 168 individual plants collected from 30 populations growing wild in two Moroccan mountains: Rif and Middle Atlas, were analyzed by GC-FID (Gas Chromatography with Flame Ionization D...

During a one-year survey of the Auchenorrhyncha fauna in a maquis habitat of the Ajaccio region (Corsica), 37 species were listed including three alien species recorded in Europe in the last decades. The standard 658 bp mitochondrial COI barcode was obtained for 32 species, including 14 species never previously barcoded. Neighbor-joining analyses c...

incomplete protogyny, self-pollination, floral scent, Colombia

Oregano herbs and essential oils are considered of great interest for their medicinal virtues as well as for their culinary properties. The present investigation aims to study the chemical diversity of the essential oils (EO) of a rare Origanum species (O. grosii) endemic to the North-West of Morocco based on a large sample size (68 individual plan...

Myrtus communis L. is a shrub growing wild in most countries all around the Mediterranean Sea and myrtle leaf oil is useful in the perfumery and pharmaceutical industries. Nowadays, “chemotyped” essential oils are more and more appreciated. Myrtle oil from eastern and central-north Algeria belong to the “α-pinene-cineole” chemotype. In contrast, Mo...

This paper presents an exhaustive review of the current knowledge on pollination of Araceae genera with bisexual flowers. All available studies on floral morphology, flowering sequence, floral scent, floral thermogenesis, floral visitors, and pollinators were carefully examined, with emphasis on the species-rich genera Anthurium Schott, Monstera Ad...

Premise of research. Variation in floral traits is mainly attributed to variations in the abundance or taxonomic composition of the pollinator assemblage. The diversity and abundance of insect pollinators decrease with elevation, which might modify the allocation patterns of floral traits in plants (i.e., attraction or rewards) at high elevation to...

The neotropical genus Anthurium has long been recognized as one of the "megagenera" of flowering plants (~1,700 sp), in addition to claiming the bulk of diversity (~25%) in its family, the Araceae. Despite this vast and beguiling array of morphologic diversity, observations on the biotic interactions that Anthurium participate with other living org...

The chemical composition of 93 oils amples from the aerial parts of Pituranthos scoparius,harvested in three regions of Algeria, was investigated by GC(FID), GC/MS and ¹³C‐NMR. Monoterpene hydrocarbons were dominating in association with phenylpropanoids and a chemical variability was found highlighting three clusters. The composition of group I (3...

The aim of this study is to test the potential of natural resources exploitation of Arum maculatum L. a promising plant for treatment against haemorrhoids. Our surveys indicated that the plant is a common woodland species in Bulgaria but with lowabundances, uneven distribution, and that the traditional remedial part, the rhizome, possesses a low we...

Field studies integrating pollination investigations with an assessment of floral scent composition and thermogenesis in tropical aroids are rather few. Thus, this study aimed to investigate the pollination biology of nine species belonging to Schismatoglottis Calyptrata Complex Clade. The flowering mechanism, visiting insect activities, reproducti...

Arum: chemistry, bioactivities, and application as a cure for hemorrhoids. Ekaterina Kozuharova1 Adam Matkowski2, Dorota Woźniak3, Zheko Naychov3, Marc Gibernau4, Georgy Momekov5, Vladimir Kochmarov6, Atanas G. Atanasov7,8,9 1MU-Sofia, Department of Pharmacognosy, Faculty of Pharmacy, Dunav 2, Sofia 1000, Bulgaria. 2Medical University of Wroclaw, D...

Observations on the pollination biology of the genus Anthurium are scant in comparison to other aroid genera despite comprising nearly 33% of all aroid species. Here we report two independent observations of lepidopteran visitors in two species of Anthurium. In Costa Rica, two different species of fruit-piercing moths (Erebidae) were observed visit...

Leaf and root essential oils of two closely related but ecologically distant Philodendron species were extracted in natural conditions in French Guyana and analysed by GC-MS to (i) describe the blends of Volatile Organic Compounds produced by those species and (ii) analyse species and environment-based variations in extracts composition. A total of...

The aim of this survey was to determine the chemical composition of essential oils (EO) of five conifers acclimated in Corsica by GC(RI), GC–MS and ¹³C NMR. L. decidua needle and wood EOs contained as majors components: α- and β-pinenes, germacrene D (needles) and bornyl acetate (wood). The EOs of needles, wood and cones of P. menziesii were charac...

The monospecific genus Ambrosina is represented by Ambrosina bassii, an endemic species of western-central Mediterranean mainly studied in Sicily and Corsica. The objectives of this study were to establish the distribution of this species and to determine its habitat and ecology in Tunisia. Moreover, the infraspecific diversity from recent and old...

This update on aroid pollinators or inflorescence-visitors adds information on 32 genera (and 60 species). Of these, 10 aroid genera and about 36 species are newly documented or revisited under new generic names. In summary, currently available data on the subject now sums up to approximately 200 aroid species across 67 genera. An ever increasing n...

The composition of oil samples isolated from needles of Pinus halepensis growing in three locations in Corsica (Saleccia, Capo di Feno, and Tre Padule) has been investigated by combination of chromatographic (GC with retention indices) and spectroscopic (MS and 13C-NMR) techniques. In total, 35 compounds that accounted for 77 - 100% of the whole co...

The composition of oil samples isolated from needles of Pinus halepensis growing in three locations in Corsica (Saleccia, Capo di Feno and Tre Padule) has been investigated by combination of chromatographic (GC with retention indices) and spectroscopic (MS, (13) C-NMR) techniques. In total, 35 compounds that accounted for 77-100% of the whole compo...

Hybridisation is common in plants and can affect the genetic diversity and ecology of sympatric parental populations. Hybrids may resemble the parental species in their ecology, leading to competition and/or gene introgression; alternatively, they may diverge from the parental phenotypes, possibly leading to the colonisation of new ecological niche...

In this study, the flowering mechanisms and pollination strategies of seven species of the highly diverse genus Homalomena (Araceae) were investigated in native populations of West Sarawak, Borneo. The floral scent compositions were also recorded for six of these species. The selected taxa belong to three out of four complexes of the section Cyrtoc...

La famille des Aracées comprend 118 genres et 3 800 espèces de plantes tropicales. Elle représente la 13e famille la plus riche au monde. Le présent ouvrage est consacré aux Aracées de Guyane française, où la famille est largement représentée avec 21 genres et 122 espèces, dont un grand nombre d’échantillons sont déposés à l’Herbier de Guyane. L’or...

La pollinisation des Aracées est un sujet passion-nant de botanique. Après nous avoir présenté dans les précédents numéros de Jardins de France des « histoires d'amour » et des « histoires d'at-trape-nigauds », Marc Gibernau et Angélique Quilichini nous dévoilent des « histoires chaleu-reuses » de ces plantes… — LA THerMOgeNÈSe — La thermogenèse es...

The reproductive ecology of two species of Dieffenbachia (D. seguine [Jacq.] Schott and D. paludicola N.E. Br. ex Gleason) was studied at the Nouragues field station research in French Guiana. As in other known Dieffenbachia, the two studied species presented the classical cyclocephaline (dynastine scarab beetle) pollination system: Nocturnal anthe...

La famiLLe des aracées, petite présentation botanique — Les Aracées représentent une famille de plantes monoco-tylédones de près de 3 800 espèces réparties dans au moins 118 genres. Elles sont principalement tropicales mais aussi représentée en milieux tempérés. Le feuillage souvent luxuriant et des inflorescences colorées en font des plantes coura...

The pollination success of the dead horse arum, Helicodiceros muscivorus, was studied in one Corsican population. This aroid species is pollinated by deception, attracting blowflies by mimicking the floral volatiles emitted by mammal cadavers. The reproductive individuals were taller and larger than non-reproductive ones, indicating that the plant...

GC-MS analysis of VOCs

Optical micrographies of hand-made sections

Most plant/pollinator interactions are mutualistic, involving rewards provided by flowers or inflorescences to pollinators. Antagonistic plant/pollinator interactions, in which flowers offer no rewards, are rare and concentrated in a few families including Araceae. In the latter, they involve trapping of pollinators, which are released loaded with...

Interactions between entomophilous plants and their pollinators are one of the major factors shaping the evolution of floral features. As species are distributed in more or less connected populations, they have evolved in a geographical mosaic of co‐evolution were the outcome of the plant–pollinator interaction is likely to vary as a result of loca...

The strongly fragrant thermogenic inflorescences of Taccarum ulei (Araceae) are highly attractive to night-active scarab beetles of Cyclocephala celata and C. cearae (Scarabaeidae, Cyclocephalini), which are effective pollinators of plants in the wild in northeastern Brazil. GC-MS analysis of headspace floral scent samples of T. ulei established th...

Taccarum ulei (Araceae, Spathicarpeae) is a seasonal geophytic aroid, native to north-eastern Brazil, that flowers during two months of the rainy season. Patterns of floral thermogenesis, pollination biology, and floral traits associated with pollination syndromes were studied and compared with those of other Araceae. Two species of cyclocephaline...

The floral development of Syngonium angustatum is analysed in the context of a recently published molecular phylogeny of the Araceae. The initiation of discoid floral primordia occurs acropetally on the surface of the inflorescence. Female flowers, atypical bisexual flowers, sterile male flowers and male flowers are inserted on the same phyllotacti...

Cyclocephaline scarabs are specialised scent-driven pollinators, implicated with the reproductive success of several Neotropical plant taxa. Night-blooming flowers pollinated by these beetles are thermogenic and release intense fragrances synchronized to pollinator activity. However, data on floral scent composition within such mutualistic interact...

Premise of the study: Many flowers are pollinated by potentially hungry insects, yet flowers also contain gametes and embryos which must be protected from predation. Microscopic calcium oxalate crystals in plant tissues have been proposed to protect against herbivory. Aroids, which have an unusual diversity of such crystals, also exhibit diverse p...

The size-advantage model (SAM) explains the temporal variation of energetic investment on reproductive structures (i. e. male and female gametes and reproductive organs) in long-lived hermaphroditic plants and animals. It proposes that an increase in the resources available to an organism induces a higher relative investment on the most energetical...

In this paper we study merosity in the genus Urospatha within the framework of a resolved phylogeny of the Araceae. We analyse how a transition from dimerous or tetramerous merosity to pentamerous or hexamerous merosity can occur developmentally in the Lasioideae. In Urospatha, initiation of floral primordia along the inflorescence is acropetal, wh...

We compared fl oral odour profi les among populations of two Arum species which show different degrees of specifi city for their fl y pollinators. Insects were collected from infl orescences in four populations of Arum italicum and two populations of Arum maculatum. In six Arum populations, we compared infl orescences odour profi les collected by S...

The pollination of the genus Arum (Araceae) is mainly achieved by deception, the floral odour mimicking the pollinator ovipositing site. In order to discover the sensory organs involved in this attraction, we have studied the antennae of fi ve species of psychodine moth-fl ies (former Psychoda sensu lato = Psychodini), pollinators of Arum spp. The...

Data on aroid pollinators or inflorescence visitors were reviewed lately by Gibernau (2003), documenting the pollinators of 49 genera and about 125 species. This addendum adds information on 35 genera, of which 9 are newly documented, and about 60 species. In summary, we have actually some information on pollinators or inflorescence visitors on 58...

Philodendron acutatum (Araceae) is a hemiepiphyte common to the Atlantic Forest of northeastern Brazil. In two localities, we studied the species' breeding system and associations with flower-visiting insects, along with an analysis of its floral scent composition. The fruit set of self-incompatible P. acutatum was high, more than 90%, and inflores...