Tag: environmental conservation and biodiversity

In entomophily, insects are the pollinating agents. Insects are the most common biotic agents of pollination. Bees are the most common insect which acts as pollinating agents. Other insect pollinators are butterflies, flies, beetles, wasps, ants, moths. Majority of insect-pollinated flowers are large-sized. These flowers are scented, colorful and fragrant and contain nectaries to attract insects. 

• About 80 percent of all plant pollination is biotic i.e it is carried out by insects such as bees, wasps, and birds.
• The remaining 20 percent of abiotically pollinated species, 98 percent is by wind pollination and 2 percent by water pollination.
  

Entomophily type of pollination takes place through the agency of insects. The entomophilous flowers are brightly colored and fragrance to attract the insects. Their pollen grains are sticky or spiny to easily get attached with the body of pollinators. When the insects visit the flowers, their body gets dusted with pollen grains, and when they fly and visit other flowers, they brush against the stigma which being sticky, at once receives the pollen grains from their body. Thus, cross-pollination is achieved. 

Hypohydrogamy includes the plants which are pollinated inside the water, e.g., Ceratophyllum, Naja, etc. Epihydrogamous - includes the plants which are pollinated on the surface of water.

A tethered structure of the eel grass flower draws in free sailing male flowers for pollination by forming a dimple on water surface. The female flower is also blown by the wind, but it is anchored by its stem. As the breeze tugs at it, so its stem pulls it lower in the water, creating a dimple in the surface. The male ship, moving freely, sails into the dimple, toboggans down its slope and collides so violently with the female flower that the pollen is knocked out of its anthers. The female flower, having achieved fertilization, then closes.

Hydrophily includes plants which are pollinated inside the water. Zostera marina is a submerged marine perennial. The pollen is exceptionally long and needle like. Specific gravity of these pollen is almost the same as that of sea water. Consequently, they can freely float in water any depth. The stigma is also very long in this plant. If the pollen comes in contact with the stigma, it coils around water. 

The most recognized pollinators are the various species of bees, which are plainly adapted to pollination. Bees typically are fuzzy and carry an electrostatic charge. Both features help pollen grains adhere to their bodies but they also have specialized pollen carrying structures; in most bees takes the form of a structure known as scopa, which is on the hind  legs of most bees, and or the lower abdomen made up of thick plumose setae. Honey bees, bumblebees and their relatives do not have a scopa, but the hind leg is modified into a struture called the corbicula. Most bees gather nectar, a concentrated energy source and pollen, which is high protein food, to nurture their young and inadvertently transfer some among the flowers as they are working.