Batesian food-source mimicry

Abstract Plants that lack floral rewards can attract pollinators if their flowers sufficiently resemble those of sympatric food-rewarding plants. This is because animals that associate the signals of rewarding flowers with food may also be attracted by similar signals in a deceptive species. The success of this form of Batesian mimicry depends on how easily pollinators can be duped in the first place and on their subsequent ability to learn to avoid the deceptive flowers. Food-source mimicry in non-rewarding flowers has close parallels with Batesian protective mimicry in terms of frequency dependence and the evolution of geographic polymorphisms. Some aspects of food source mimicry are controversial and the chapter is organized around the different lines of evidence for this form of mimicry in plants.