There’s an eye-catching paper in Ecological Monographs recently, “The mating consequences of rewarding vs. deceptive pollination systems: is there a quantity-quality trade-off?” by Hobbhahn et al.. It tackles a puzzle in some orchids: why give a reward to pollinators?

We’re taught from a young age that plants provide nectar to insects for pollinating them, which is why orchids are fascinating. They often don’t, instead getting pollinated through deceit. The usual explanation is that deceit reduces the number of visits by a pollinator to a plant, but it helps target the pollen to another plant of the same species. A pollinator that’s foraging for food will go wherever provides food.