Crop Pollination In Modern Agriculture

Abstract

Approximately two thirds of all flowering plants are pollinated by insects. This ``service'' is not free. In return for pollen transfer, plants provide food for their partners in the form of nectar and pollen. Pollen is the nutritional source of protein, fatty acids, lipids sterols, vitamins and minerals (Todd and Bretherick, 1942) while carbohydrates, the basic source of energy, are supplied mostly by the nectar (Baker and Baker, 1983). Because each of the two parties can only barely survive, if at all, without the other, this is an exemplary case of mutualism. Associations from which both partners benefit are widespread, but that between angiosperms and insect pollinators is probably the most spectacular and large-scale example of mutualism in the living world (Schoonhoven et al., 1998). Animal-pollinated flowers advertise themselves by presenting various stimuli – visual, olfactory and tactile, simultaneously. The conspicuousness of the advertisement depends on the flowers' color, size and shape, as well as the strength of their volatile emissions, and the perception of these traits by pollinators (Kevan, 2005).