POLLINATION BIOLOGY: ASPECTS AND PROSPECTS

摘要

Pollination biology is an inter-disciplinary science of importance in gaining knowledge on the subject in the natural setting of plant species. The pollination process is commonly associated with different insect and vertebrate pollinator species. Most often, the association is mutualistic and this association is disturbed or even endangered due to deforestation, biodiversity loss, global warming, climate change and land use changes. In flowering plants, the flowers exhibit different structural and functional characteristics which can be grouped into different syndromes based on pollinator type or class. Some pollination syndromes include anemophily, hydrophily, melittophily, myophily, cantharophily, sphingophily, psychophily, ornithophily and chiropterophily. This specialization in plants suggests that each plant species displays a suite of floral characteristics adapted for specialist or generalist pollinators and thus the biodiversity plays an important role for the sustainability of pollinatoranimals which are very diverse and require different floral forage in terms of nutritional quality and quantity. The agricultural and forest productivity is dependent on pollinator services and these services are not free. The relevance of the study of various aspects of pollination biology is imperative and this provides an excellent opportunity or prospects for the researchers. The outcome of such studies enables us to understand and frame effective conservation and management measures for the sustainability of still available biodiversity in their own natural areas or ecosystems and also restore population size of both plant and pollinator species in order to assure food, nutrition and environmental security to humanity.