DE SCIENCE DISCOVERY

Study of flowers with two types of anthers solves mystery that baffled Darwin Some flowers use a clever strategy to ensure effective pollination by bees, doling out pollen gradually from two different sets of anthers Most flowering plants depend on pollinators such as bees to transfer pollen from the male anthers of one flower to the female stigma of another flower, enabling fertilization and the production of fruits and seeds. Bee pollination, however, involves an inherent conflict of interest, because bees are only interested in pollen as a food source. "The bee and the plant have different goals, so plants have evolved ways to optimize the behavior of bees to maximize the transfer of pollen between flowers," explained Kathleen Kay, associate professor of ecology and evolutionary biology at UC Santa Cruz. In a study published December 23 in Proceedings of the Royal Society B, Kay's team described a pollination strategy involving flowers with two distinct set...