Contribution of small insects to pollination of common buckwheat, a distylous crop

Crop pollination by animals is an essential ecosystem service. Among animal-pollinated crops, distylous plants strongly depend on animal pollination. In distylous pollination systems, pollinator species are usually limited, although flowers of some distylous plants are visited by diverse animals. We studied the pollination biology of common buckwheat (Fagopyrum esculentum), a distylous crop mainly pollinated by honeybees and visited by many insect species, to evaluate the effects of non-honeybee species on pollination services. We focused on insects smaller than honeybees to determine their contribution to pollination. We applied pollination treatments with bags of coarse mesh to exclude flower visits by honeybees and larger insects and compared the seed set of bagged plants with that of untreated plants for pin and thrum flower morphs. We found a great reduction of seed set only in bagged pin flowers. We also confirmed that small insects, including ants, bees, wasps and flies, carried pin-morph pollen. These small insects transfer pollen from the short anthers of pin flowers to the short styles of thrum flowers, leading to sufficient seed set in thrum flowers. Consequently, small, non-honeybee insects have the potential to maintain at least half of the yield of this honeybee-dependent distylous crop.