Honesty, Reliability, and Information Content of Floral Signals

Plants advertise their presence by displaying attractive flowers, which pollinators use to locate a floral reward. Understanding how floral traits scale with reward status lies at the heart of pollination biology, because it connects the different interests of plants and pollinators. Studies on plant phenotype-reward associations often use different terms and concepts, which limits developing a broader synthesis. Here, we present a framework with definitions of the key aspects of plant phenotype-reward associations and provide measures to quantify them across different species and studies. We first distinguish between cues and signals, which are often used interchangeably, but have different meanings and are subject to different selective pressures. We then define honesty, reliability, and information content of floral cues/signals and provide ways to quantify them. Finally, we discuss the ecological and evolutionary factors that determine flower phenotype-reward associations, how context-dependent and temporally variable they are, and highlight promising research directions.