Parisian pansy

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Context

• In the first evidence of rapid evolution, scientists have discovered that a flower Parisian pansy is producing less nectar and smaller flowers to attract fewer pollinators.

Viola arvensis

• Viola arvensis is a species of violet known by the common name field pansy.
• It is native to Europe, western Asia, and North Africa, and it is known on other continents as an introduced species and a weed of disturbed and cultivated areas.
• It is an herbaceous annual plant with serrated leaves, and usually flowers with white all over, except the bottom petal and dehiscent capsules. It reproduces by seed. It grows 20 centimetres tall.
• Parisian pansies specifically are flowers growing in Paris, France.

Recent Research

• Field pansy produces less nectar and smaller flowers to attract fewer pollinators.
• Field pansy is self-pollinating, as indicated by the research.
• Ongoing convergent evolution of a selfing-syndrome threatens plant-pollinator interactions.
• The study found that flowers of the wild pansy variety grown in four locations in Paris produced 20 percent less nectar and were 10 percent smaller.
• The scientists compared the growth of the flowers grown in the same fields with seeds from 20-30 years ago. Insects also frequented the fields where the flowers grew.
• Scientists discovered that the plant evolved to self-pollinate to attract fewer pollinators due to the decreasing availability of insects.
• This study is the first to show convergent evolution across populations, reduced rewarding trait, and reduced attractiveness.
• Self-pollination is the process by which plants reproduce themselves.
• The behavior is contrary to the convention of angiosperms, which rely on insects to pollinate to reproduce — an interconnected relationship in nature.
• Plants produce nectar to attract insects, which collect nectar for food and transport pollen between plants in nature. The interlinked give-and-take relationship has evolved over 100 million years of coevolution.
• The researchers used the “resurrection ecology” method, wherein they planted seeds from the 1990s and 2000s, which were 20-30 years old, against their contemporary descendants from 2021. The seeds were planted in four locations across Paris, growing about 4,000 plants.