Pollination system and effective pollinators of Argania spinosa (L. Skeels)

This work deals with Argania spinosa breeding system and its associated pollinators in two different sites located in Souss valley. The main objective of this work was to study the effect of three pollination treatments on the percentage of fruit set of argan tree as well as to determine its potential pollinators. To study the breeding system, three treatments were applied for flower buds. The first treatment is an open pollination for insects and wind, the second one concerns only wind pollination, and the third one is a self-pollination. On the other hand, flower visitors were assessed to evaluate their frequency (F) and their activity rate (AR) which were exploited to calculate the index of visitation rate (IVR = F × AR) for each visitor. Pollen loads were also counted for the main pollinators as well as their foraging behavior. A highly significant fruit set was obtained from insect open pollination compared to the other treatments (p