Hi Jim, There are different ways to approach this, but I can think of several ways to try and show that these *Drosophila *do pollinate the plants. The first and easiest way is to look at the pollen on these flies. Do they belong the same species of *Trillium*? This doesn't tell you much, other than that they carry pollen of one or multiple species. The second thing you can do is to set up a garden experiment where you have a single species of *Trillium *within nets that exclude all other insects. You can have several pots placed a distant apart in this net. You will need two sets, one set you will add flies, the other you will not (=control). See what happens after the flowers have finished blooming. I can see many complications with this experiment, particularly if your flies die. You should also know if your plants are self-fertile. After this experiment is done (or even simultaneous to this experiment), you can ask different questions regarding the pollination biology of *Trillium *based on different insects, or does one species of insect pollinate many species of *Trillium*? This approach would be simple. You just need to set up insect traps such as a sticky trap around the *Trillium *and see what shows up. Or, you can perch there all day and see what comes to pollinate. The problem is that some things may not come with you sitting around. Anyway, those are the ideas I can pull out of my head this cloudy morning. I'm sure you can come up with other fun experiments to try. Good luck with it. Nhu Berkeley, CA On Sun, May 11, 2008 at 7:19 AM, J.E. Shields <jshields@indy.net> wrote: > Hi Kelly, > > I'm just referring to anything that transports pollen from one flower to > another in a manner that results in pollination of the recipient flower, so > I use "vector" in the broadest sense. It had not occurred to me before > that there might be a methodology involved in establishing that a > particular bug was a true natural pollinator of a given plant species. > > Jim Shields > > At 09:06 AM 5/11/2008 -0500, you wrote: > >Hi, Jim. I don't have an answer. I would ask are meaning "pollinator" > >and not "pollination vector", unless you are talking about disease > carriers? > > > >Mr. Kelly M. Irvin > >10850 Hodge Ln > >Gravette, AR 72736 > >USA > > > >479-787-9958 > >USDA Cold Hardiness Zone 6a/b > > > >http://www.irvincentral.com/ > > > >_______________________________________________ > >pbs mailing list > >pbs@lists.ibiblio.org > >http://www.pacificbulbsociety.org/list.php > >http://pacificbulbsociety.org/pbswiki/ > > ************************************************* > Jim Shields USDA Zone 5 Shields Gardens, Ltd. > P.O. Box 92 WWW: http://www.shieldsgardens.com/ > Westfield, Indiana 46074, USA > Tel. ++1-317-867-3344 or toll-free 1-866-449-3344 in USA > > > _______________________________________________ > pbs mailing list > pbs@lists.ibiblio.org > http://www.pacificbulbsociety.org/list.php > http://pacificbulbsociety.org/pbswiki/ > -- http://www.flickr.com/photos/xerantheum/