Marcela Moré

• Doctora en Ciencias Biológicas
• Researcher at Instituto Multidisciplinario de Biología Vegetal (IMBIV)

Night-flying pollinators, such as hawkmoths, are particularly vulnerable to the global spread of urban artificial lighting which is changing nighttime environments worldwide, impacting organisms and their interactions. Incident light quality can alter flower and leaf color perception by insects, depending on the emission spectra of light sources an...

Dataset and full R script used in the data analysis of the paper "Artificial light changes visual perception by pollinators in a hawkmoth-plant interaction system". Summary: Night-flying pollinators, such as hawkmoths, are particularly vulnerable to the global spread of urban artificial lighting which is changing nighttime environments worldwide,...

Flowers of most Piperales do not reward pollinators. However, a few mutualistic pollination relationships have been proposed among the perianth-bearing species. To test the hypothesis of a mutualistic relationship between Prosopanche and beetle pollinators, we studied the pollination biology of three species (P. americana, P. bonacinae, P. panguane...

Flower morphology is considered an important factor in species diversification because it may influence the efficiency of pollination in different ways ( e.g. attraction and mechanical fit with different groups of pollinators). In the present study, we quantified the variation in flower morphology ( i.e. shape and size) of the diverse South America...

Invasive plants displaying disparate pollination environments and abiotic conditions in native and non‐native ranges provide ideal systems to test the role of different ecological factors driving flower colour variation. We quantified corolla reflectance of the ornithophilous South American Nicotiana glauca in native populations, where plants are p...

Floral scent is a key communication channel between plants and pollinators. However, the contributions of environment and phylogeny to floral scent composition remain poorly understood. In this study, we characterized interspecific variation of floral scent composition in the genus Jaborosa Juss. (Solanaceae) and, using an ecological niche modellin...

Flower phenotype may diverge within plant lineages when moving across “pollinator climates” (geographic differences in pollinator abundance or preference). Here we explored the potential importance of pollinators as drivers of floral color diversification in the nightshade genus Jaborosa, taking into account color perception capabilities of the act...

Learning plays an important role in the location and utilization of nectar sources for pollinators. In this work we focus on the plant-pollinator interaction between the butterfly Agraulis vanillae (Nymphalidae) and two Glandularia plant species (Verbenaceae) that grow in sympatry. Bioassays using arrays of artificial flowers (red vs. lilac-purple)...

Biotic and abiotic context may affect the intensity of interspecific interactions and subsequently drive locally particular phenotypic selection patterns on interacting traits. We evaluated the geographical variation of matching traits of the brush‐type flowers of Caesalpinia gilliesii and of the proboscis length of its guild of hawkmoth pollinator...

Floral scents can act as important contributing factors to plant reproductive isolation mediated by pollinators. Plants may utilize fetid floral odors that specifically lure saprophilous flies seeking high protein content substrates, such as dung or carrion, to reach sexual maturity or as food sources for their larvae. In this work, we used baits w...

[This corrects the article DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0209742.].

Occurrence data collected for the sword-billed hummingbird E. ensifera. (DOCX)

The coevolutionary process among free-living mutualists with extremely long matching traits may favor the formation of mutualistic interaction networks through coevolutionary escalation, complementarity and convergence. These networks may be geographically structured; the links among the species of a local network are shaped by the biotic compositi...

Potential current ranges of the sword-billed hummingbird E. ensifera. Probability of occurrence averaged after 10 cross-validation runs at the potential suitable habitat based on the SDMs is indicated with yellow to red colors. Background vector maps of was obtained from the public domain dataset Natural Earth @naturalearthdata.com. (EPS)

Occurrence data collected for the sword-billed hummingbird E. ensifera. (DOCX)

‘Gradual’ vs ‘punctuated’ and ‘unidirectional’ (only lengthening) vs. ‘bidirectional’ (lengthenings and shortenings) modes of evolution are explanations that compete to explain adaptive changes of flower tube length in angiosperm. The nightshade genus Salpichroa Miers, with 21 species mostly growing in the tropical Andes of southern South America,...

Phenotypic intermediacy is an indicator of putative hybrid origin, and has provided the main clues to discovering hybrid plants in nature. Mandevilla pentlandiana and M. laxa (Apocynaceae) are sister species with clear differences in floral phenotype and associated pollinator guilds: diurnal Hymenoptera and nocturnal hawkmoths, respectively. The pr...

En 16 especies del género sudamericano Salpichroa Miers pusimos a prueba si la variación inter-específica en los rasgos florales está asociada con cambios en el modo de polinización. Para esto reconstruimos la filogenia del grupo en base a dos marcadores de cloroplasto y uno nuclear, utilizando métodos bayesianos. Cuantificamos cuatro rasgos floral...

With the purpose of discussing the evolutionary dynamics of the karyotypes and their relationship with key geological events, chromomycin A3/4',6-diamidino-2-phenylindole (CMA/DAPI) banding and fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH) techniques were applied to metaphase chromosomes of 13 Jaborosa spp. and Sclerophylax spinescens, and the resultin...

1. Proboscis length has been proposed as a key dimension of plant pollination niches, but this niche space has not previously been explored at regional and global scales for any pollination system. Hawkmoths are ideal organisms for exploring pollinator niches as they are important pollinators in most of the biodiverse regions of the earth and vary...

1. A major challenge in evolutionary ecology is to understand how coevolutionary processes shape patterns of interactions between species at community level. Pollination of flowers with long corolla tubes by long-tongued hawkmoths has been invoked as a showcase model of coevolution. Recently, optimal foraging models have predicted that there might...

The genus Jaborosa (Solanaceae), which comprises 22 species endemic to southern South America, encompasses remarkable flower variation. To test if this interspecific variation is related to transitions in pollination mode and to major concomitant geological changes, phylogenetic relationships within the genus were reconstructed. To determine when s...

The moth family Sphingidae (hawkmoths, sphinx moths) has a cosmopolitan distribution. The adults range in size from small to very large and are generally nocturnal in activity, when they play an important ecological role as pollinators. The caterpillars are also noticeable for the large size many can reach and for the conspicuous caudal horn presen...

Plant species that coexist and share pollinators may experience inter-specific competition for pollinator service or interference of improper pollen. To avoid the latter, plant species may use different areas of the pollinators´ body to deposit their pollen, either by different floral architectures or by different floral lengths. We evaluate here t...

Darwin foi o primeiro a propor que caracteres florais evoluem como adaptações aos polinizadores. Em seus trabalhos utilizou orquídeas como alguns dos principais exemplos para ilustrar a teoria da evolução através da seleção natural. Contudo, apenas recentemente muitas das hipóteses adaptativas têm sido testadas experimentalmente quantificando-se a...

Premise of research. Brood-site deceptive flowers use dishonest signals—especially floral odors that mimic oviposition substrates—to attract and deceive saprophilous insects to pollinate them. In this work, we recorded the pollinators of the sapromyiophilous species Jaborosa rotacea (Solanaceae) endemic to southern South America. Then, we character...

Flower morphology has been considered an important factor in species isolation because of its dual impact on the attraction and mechanical fit with pollinators. In the present work we quantified the variation in floral shape amongst twelve species of the genus Jaborosa Juss. (Solanaceae) to assess whether this variation is spurred by pollinator’ sh...

Some species of long-spurred orchids achieve pollination by a close association with long-tongued hawkmoths. Among them, several Habenaria species present specialized mechanisms, where pollination success depends on the attachment of pollinaria onto the heads of hawkmoths with very long proboscises. However, in the Neotropical region such moths are...

We studied gland morphology, anatomy and the chemical composition of the floral fragrance in the sweat bee-pollinated orchid Cyclopogon elatus. This is apparently the first such analysis for any Cyclopogon species, and one of very few studies in which both odour and osmophore are characterised in a nectar-rewarding orchid. Structures responsible fo...

A South American cactus species, Echinopsis ancistrophora (Cactaceae), with dramatic among-population variation in floral traits is presented. Eleven populations of E. ancistrophora were studied in their habitats in northern Argentina, and comparisons were made of relevant floral traits such as depth, stigma position, nectar volume and sugar concen...

Apocynaceae have a precise pollination mechanism. However, broad pollinator assemblages, including several insect orders, have often been recorded. We test how the corolla tube length and operative width required for effective release of the pollination mechanism could restrict the pollinator assemblage in putatively hawkmoth-pollinated Apocynaceae...

The pollination of Caesalpinia gilliesii (Fabaceae), a legume species with long, brush-type flowers, was studied in wild populations in Argentina. A total of 341 hawkmoths (Sphingidae), belonging to 10 species, with tongues ranging from 1.5 to 13.5 cm in length, were captured by means of light traps. Hawkmoths could be classified in four significan...

Hawkmoths are familiar even to non-specialists because of the considerable size of the adults and their attraction to artificial light sources. For the more acquainted observer, hawkmoths draw attention by the swift night flight of their adults drinking nectar from flowers, and by the great size their voracious leaf-eating larvae can reach. For thi...

Diatraea saccharalis F. is a major pest to maize, sorghum and sugarcane crops in Latin America and the most damaging insect pest of maize in Argentina. Female moths lay their eggs on lower and upper sides of leaves and sheaths of corn plants. Oviposition behaviour of different species of corn stem borers is influenced by host plant phenology in dif...

The putative ancestors of the allopolyploid hybrid Nicotiana tabacum have distinct flower features, apparently suited either for hawkmoth or bat pollination. This suggests that progenitors were reproductively isolated by mechanical and ethological barriers. However, the present data show that in natural populations pollen vectors could be shared by...