There's more to plant's flower arrangement than meets the eye

They may seem to have no other option than to rely entirely on insects, but it turns out, plants have been controlling their reproduction all along!

According to a recent study, plants can maximise their chances of reproduction by taking advantage of how insects move between flowers when they track down nectar.

Scientists from the University of Edinburgh and the University of Calgary found that the way in which plants arrange their flowers affects the flight patterns taken by foraging bees.

Researchers expect that this likely has an impact for how plants reproduce and they suggest that plants have evolved over time to take advantage of it.

Scientists studied the flights of bumblebees as they collected nectar from wild tall larkspur flowers and found that when the plants' flowers were present on only one side of the stem, bees would more often fly vertically between flowers. By comparison, when a plant had flowers all around its stem, bees would be less likely to fly upwards.

The findings are helping to aid scientists' understanding of how plants can control their pollen spread by foraging insects.

They could also inform the development of plant crops with high yields, by enabling scientists to understand how plants can transfer pollen most efficiently.

The results may also help explain why about half of all flowering plants produce flowers that can have female or male characteristics at different times. These arrangements may maximise the plant's chances of reproduction.

Lead author Dr. Crispin Jordan said: "Plants and their flowers exist in all shapes and sizes, and our finding that the arrangement of flowers can influence how bees forage might go some way to explaining how plants, which rely on others species to spread pollen, can influence their own reproduction."

The study is published in the journal Annals of Botany.