Floral traits predict nectar rewards across diverse plant communities

Corolla tube length, corolla base width, and corolla shape predict nectar volume and sugar content across 156 flowering plant species from 42 families, with species-level R^2 up to 0.51.

• Why it matters: Measuring nectar rewards directly is difficult across taxonomically diverse communities, limiting how broadly nectar resources can be mapped for pollination ecology.
• What they did: The study measured nectar volume, sugar concentration, and total sugar content alongside corolla traits in tubular and non-tubular flowers, fitting linear mixed-effects models and testing predictive performance via observation- and species-level cross-validation.
• The result: Nectar volume increased strongly with floral dimensions in both flower types, and sugar content tracked nectar volume on a log scale; species-level cross-validation gave R^2 = 0.43 (tubular) and 0.51 (non-tubular), with weak but significant phylogenetic signal.

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