I need advice for which plants I should resemble.
Inspired by Sapir and Dudley (2013), I would like to make some artificial flowers to attract free-ranging hummingbirds to test how floral orientation effects flight (e.g. flowers oriented horizontally and tilted 45° downwards).
I would like to resemble plants that occur in the study area and that have different floral orientation. Further, they should not be too difficult to resemble in plastic.
I'm interested in three different areas:
1. Ontario in Canada
2. U.S. state of Washington
3. The southern pacific region of Costa Rica
Sapir, N. and R. Dudley. 2013. Implications of floral orientation for flight kinematics and metabolic expenditure of hover-feeding hummingbirds. Functional Ecology 27:227-235.
Something tubular (do a Google image search for Aloe vera flowers) and red would be a good choice.
In Costa Rica, colorful, tubular or rossette-like structures are attractive to hummingbirds. Red, pink, fuchsia and orange are usually the most attractive colors. Gingers, Bromeliads, some Orchidaceae, and members of Costaceae, Musaceae, Melastomataceae and Verbenaceae are present in south Pacific Costa Rica and are visited by hummingbirds; try to imitate what you see is my best advice. You can also search for articles related to the topic you want to work on; I am sure others have carried out similar experiments.
I forgot. here are some of the most common species of the Costa Rican south Pacific region: Amazilia decora, Amazilia tzacatl, Threnetes ruckeri, Phaethornis longirostris y Heliothryx barroti. You may want to search articles related to pollination or feeding strategies or pollination syndromes. Best wishes, Melania
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