Latest Pollination Stories
"How do hearts, wings or flowers get their shape?" asks Professor Enrico Coen from the John Innes Centre. " Unlike man-made things like mobile phones or cars, there is no external hand or machine guiding the formation of these biological structures; they grow into particular shapes of their own accord.""Looking at the complex, beautiful and finely tuned shapes produced by nature, people have often wondered how they came about. We are beginning to understand the basic...
Plants that can pollinate themselves are more likely to go extinct, says new study of nightshade plant familyMany plants can pollinate themselves and reproduce without the aid of a mate, thanks to having both male and female parts. But the short-term perks of being able to go it alone come with long-term costs, says a new study in the journal Science. The reason is because plants that can pollinate themselves are more prone to extinction, scientists say.Flowering plants are incredibly...
A research team led by Teh-hui Kao, professor of biochemistry and molecular biology at Penn State University, in collaboration with a team lead by Professor Seiji Takayama at the Nara Institute of Science and Technology in Japan, has discovered a large suite of genes in the petunia plant that acts to prevent it from breeding with itself or with its close relatives, and to promote breeding with unrelated individuals. In much the same way that human inbreeding sometimes results in genetic...
Most flowering plants, equipped with both male and female sex organs, can fertilize themselves and procreate without the aid of a mate. But this may only present a short-term adaptive benefit, according to a team of researchers led by two University of Illinois at Chicago biologists, who report that long-term evolutionary survival of a species favors flowers that welcome pollen from another plant."We've shown that a strong, short-term advantage experienced by individuals that have sex...
Relationships among organisms, or mutualisms, might be more important to global ecosystem health than previously thought, argues a research team involving UA professor Judith BronsteinMutually beneficial partnerships among species may play highly important but vastly underrecognized roles in keeping the Earth's ecosystems running, a group of evolutionary biologists suggests in a study.The authors present evidence that human impacts may be forcing these mutualist systems down unprecedented...
Gardeners could help out the declining worldwide bee population by planting flowers that are red or have stripes along the veins, UK researchers announced on Monday.Experts from the John Innes Centre (JIC), an institute of the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC), studied the foraging patterns of bumblebees on a field of snapdragon plants located near the British city of Norwich.By comparing the number of visits the insects made to each plant, they were able to...
Solomon's lily imitates a yeasty odor to lure vinegar flies into a trapScientists from the Max Planck Institute for Chemical Ecology in Jena, Germany, have solved a case of fraud that has been pending for 40 million years. Arum palaestinum, also called the Solomon's lily, attracts drosophilids (vinegar flies) as pollinators by emitting odor molecules that resemble those produced during alcoholic fermentation of rotting fruit initiated by yeast. The plant accomplishes the illusion of yeast...
Patterns of flower biodiversity point to the importance of having 'room to grow'What, in nature, drives the incredible diversity of flowers? This question has sparked debate since Darwin described flower diversification as an 'abominable mystery.' The answer has become a lot clearer, according to scientists at the University of Calgary whose research on the subject is published today in the on-line edition of the journal Ecology Letters.Drs. Jana Vamosi and Steven Vamosi of the Department of...
Bee I.D. study will help scientists research biodiversityA York University doctoral student who discovered a new species of bee on his way to the lab one morning has completed a study that examines 84 species of sweat bees in Canada. Nineteen of these species "“ including the one Jason Gibbs found in downtown Toronto − are new to science because they have never been identified or described before.Gibbs' expansive study will help scientists track bee diversity, understand pollination...
Why do some insect-eating plants like sundews keep their flowers so far away from their traps? New research suggests that it isn't a clever trick to keep pollinators safe, it's about getting pollinatedSex can be complicated at the best of times, but plants have an extra difficulty. If you're a plant who relies on insects to pollinate your flowers and reproduce, you will want your flowerstalks to be long. That way your flowers are on display to insects above the crowd. But if your stalk is too...
Latest Pollination Reference Libraries
Apiology is the scientific study of honey bees, a subdiscipline of melittology (the study of all bees), which is a subdiscipline of entomology. Melittology comprises of more than 17,000 species other than the honey bee. Apiology includes apicology, which is the study of honey bee ecology. Honey bees are often chosen as a study group to answer questions on the evolution of social systems. People who study honey bees are called apiologists. There have been a number of notable apiologists...
The Lily of the Nile or Calla Lily (Zantedeschia aethiopica) is a species of plant native to southern Africa in Lesotho, South Africa, and Swaziland. It has been introduced to Western Australia where it occurs in high periodical water tables and sandy soil. Several hybrids have been established and introduced to other areas around the world. Some hybrids are more suited to cooler climates. One hybrid, Crowborough, grows better in the British Isles and the northwestern United States than it...
The Souimanga Sunbird (Cinnyris sovimanga), is a small passerine bird of the sunbird family, Nectariniidae. It is native to the islands of the western Indian Ocean where it occurs on Madagascar, the Aldabra Group and the Glorioso Islands. The Souimanga Sunbird can be found in a variety of habitats from mountain forests to mangroves and scrubland as well as in parks, gardens and other human-modified ecosystems. Souimanga Sunbirds are one of the most common small land birds across much of their...
The Olive-backed Sunbird (Cinnyris jugularis), also known as the Yellow-bellied Sunbird, is an Asian sunbird. The Olive-backed Sunbird is common across southern China to the Philippines and Malaysia down to northeast Australia. Originally from mangrove habitat, the Olive-backed sunbird has adapted well to humans, and is now common even in fairly densely populated areas, even forming their nests in human dwellings. They are small songbirds, at most 4.75 inches long. The underparts of both...
The Purple Sunbird (Cinnyris asiaticus), is a sunbird that is part of a group of very small Old World passerine birds. It is an abundant resident breeder across tropical southern Asia from the Persian Gulf to Southeast Asia. One to three eggs are laid in a suspended nest in a tree. This species is found in a variety of habitats with some trees, including forest and cultivation. Purple Sunbirds are tiny, only 4 inches long. They have medium-length thin down-curved bills and brush-tipped...
