http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/05/120530100705.htm

Got Nectar? To Hawkmoths, Humidity Is a Cue

ScienceDaily (May 30, 2012) — Humidity emanating from a flower's nectar
stores tells a moth if the flower is worth a visit, research led by a UA
entomologist has discovered.


The myriad of ways in which flowers attract pollinators have been studied
since the beginning of biology, and few ecological relationships between
organisms are as well understood as those between plants and their
pollinators.

Despite decades of research, a team led by Martin von Arx, a postdoctoral
fellow in the lab of Goggy Davidowitz in the University of Arizona
department of entomology, now has discovered a previously unknown sensory
channel that is used in plant-animal interactions.

The study, "Floral humidity as a reliable sensory cue for profitability
assessment by nectar-foraging hawkmoths," is co-authored by Davidowitz and
Joaquín Goyret and Robert Raguso at the department of neurobiology and
behavior at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, where the work was
carried out.

"Traditionally, most research on plant-pollinator interactions has focused
on static cues like floral scent, color or shape," von Arx said. "All this
time, evaporation from nectar was right under our noses, but few people
ever looked. We were able to show that the insects actually perceive this
cue, and it allows them to directly assess the reward that they might get
from the flower."

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