______
If you want to learn more about this topic, here are some handy keywords to get your googling started:
– Mycelium
– Mycorrizhae: a fungus that grows in association with the roots of a plant in a symbiotic or mildly pathogenic relationship.
– Mycoheterotroph: A plant that is completely reliant on fungus for all of its nutrition.
– Sexual deception: A trick used by numerous orchid species of looking and/or smelling like female insects in order to draw male insects to their flowers (for pollination)
– Food deception: Rather than offering pollinators real food rewards (such as nectar or pollen), some orchids merely mimic the looks and smells of other, nearby flowers that offer such rewards.
– Pollinia: In most flowering plants, pollen is a powdery substance made up of tons of individual pollen grains. But orchids pack their grains into a couple of sticky sacks (pollinia) instead.
– Epiphyte: A plant that grows harmlessly upon another plant. Lots of tropical orchids are epiphytes
– Lithophyte: A plant that grows on rocks
Species Featured in this video:
– Phantom Orchid (Cephalanthera austiniae)
– Bee orchid (Ophrys apifera)
– Fly orchid (Ophrys insectifera)
– Mirror orchid (Ophrys speculum)
– Red Helleborine Orchid (Cephalanthera rubra)
– Nettle-leaved bellflower (Campanula trachelium)
– Hammer orchid (Drakaea glyptodon)
– Wasp (Zaspilothynnus trilobatus)
– Lady’s slipper orchids (Cypripedium calceolus)
– Dracula orchids (Dracula terborchii and Dracula andreettae)
– Spider orchids (Genus Caladenia)
– Cigar Orchid (Cyrtopodium punctatum)
– Venus slipper (Paphiopedilum Maudiae)
______
Credits (and Twitter handles):
Script Writer: Peter Reich
Script Editor: Emily Elert (@eelert)
Video Illustrators: Omkar Bhagat (@TheCuriousEnggr) and Ever Salazar (@eversalazar)
Video Director: Emily Elert (@eelert)
Video Narrator: Emily Elert (@eelert)
With Contributions From: Henry Reich, Alex Reich, Kate Yoshida, Rachel Becker and David Goldenberg
Music by: Nathaniel Schroeder: http://www.soundcloud.com/drschroeder
Image Credits:
Phantom Orchid – Miguel Vieira
Ophrys apifera – Hans Hillewaert
Ophrys insectifera – Bernd Haynold
Ophrys speculum – Wikimedia user Esculapio
Cephalanthera rubra and Campanula trachelium – Olivier Pichard
Hammer Orchid Animation based on Photos by Rod Peakall
Lady Slipper Orchid – Flickr user ladydragonflyherworld
______
References:
Cameron DD, Johnson I, Read DJ, Leake JR. 2008. Giving and receiving: measuring the carbon cost of mycorrhizas in the green orchid, Goodyera repens. New Phytologist 180: 176–184.
Cameron DD, Leake JR, Read DJ. 2006. Mutualistic mycorrhiza in orchids: evidence from plant-fungus carbon and nitrogen transfers in the green- leaved terrestrial orchid Goodyera repens. New Phytologist 171: 405–416.
Cameron DD, Preiss K, Gebauer G, Read DJ. 2009. The chlorophyll containing orchid Corallorhiza trifida derives little carbon through photosynthesis. New Phytologist 183: 358–364.
Givnish, T. J., Spalink, D., Ames, M., Lyon, S. P., Hunter, S. J., Zuluaga, A., . . . Cameron, K. M. (2015). Orchid phylogenomics and multiple drivers of their extraordinary diversification. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences Proc. R. Soc. B, 282(1814), 20151553. doi:10.1098/rspb.2015.1553
Hopper, S. D., & Brown, A. P. (2007). A revision of Australia’ s hammer orchids (Drakaea: Orchidaceae), with some field data on species-specific sexually deceived wasp pollinators. Aust. Systematic Bot. Australian Systematic Botany, 20(3), 252. Retrieved April 28, 2016, from https://goo.gl/3l7Yuv.
IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. http://goo.gl/3tzFuC.Accessed online April 27, 2016.
Koopowitz, H.. (1992). A STOCHASTIC MODEL FOR THE EXTINCTION OF TROPICAL ORCHIDS. Selbyana,13, 115–122. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/41759800
Mccormick, M. K., Taylor, D. L., Juhaszova, K., Burnett, R. K., Whigham, D. F., & O’Neill, J. P. (2012). Limitations on orchid recruitment: Not a simple picture. Molecular Ecology, 21(6), 1511-1523. doi:10.1111/j.1365-294x.2012.05468.x
Merckx, V. and Freudenstein, J. V. (2010), Evolution of mycoheterotrophy in plants: a phylogenetic perspective. New Phytologist, 185: 605–609. Retrieved April 28, 2016, from http://goo.gl/CvCQOX)
Rasmussen, Hanne N., and Finn N. Rasmussen. “Orchid mycorrhiza: implications of a mycophagous life style.” Oikos 118.3 (2009): 334-345.