Experiments were conducted from May-July 2003 to determine the relative importance of various insect visitors to the pollination of slickspot peppergrass, Lepidium papilliferum, a rare mustard endemic to southwestern Idaho. Previous work found that at least 25 families of insect visit this plant’s flowers. Three aspects of insect visitations were measured in 2003: (1) the relative abundance of each insect family visiting L. papilliferum flowers, (2) the number of flowers contacted per unit time foraging by each type of insect, and (3) pollen transfer efficiency, measured as percent fruit set, for each type of insect visitor. With these three measures we determined which insects were making the greatest contribution to pollination, and whether there was consistency in this finding among populations of the plant throughout its range.
Species 1: Hymenoptera Sphecidae
Species 2: Hymenoptera Halictidae
Species 3: Diptera Tachinidae
Keywords: pollination, conservation
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