Ants play a variety of important roles in many ecosystems. As frequent visitors to flowers, they can benefit plants in their role as pollinators when they forage on sugar-rich nectar. However, a new study reveals that this ...
Plants & Animals
Apr 24, 2013
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How flowers have evolved particular colours, shapes and scents to attract pollinators has long fascinated ecologists. Now, using artificial flowers and high-speed video, researchers have gained intriguing insights into the ...
Plants & Animals
Nov 20, 2012
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Across the western Cape of South Africa can be found small plants in the Iris family called Babiana. Flitting between them are sunbirds, small colourful birds like the African version of hummingbirds, that drink the nectar ...
Plants & Animals
Sep 6, 2011
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The researchers discovered that a rainforest vine, pollinated by bats, has evolved dish-shaped leaves with such conspicuous echoes that nectar-feeding bats can find its flowers twice as fast by echolocation. The study is ...
Plants & Animals
Jul 28, 2011
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A new study reveals how enzymes in the honey bee gut detoxify pesticides commonly used to kill mites in the honey bee hive. This is the first study to tease out the precise molecular mechanisms that allow a pollinating insect ...
Plants & Animals
Jul 20, 2011
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Flowering plants produce nectar to attract insect pollinators. Some plant species, such as Lima bean, also secrete nectar from so-called extrafloral nectaries to attract ants which in turn fend off herbivores. Scientists ...
Plants & Animals
Sep 27, 2010
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(PhysOrg.com) -- Research by Dr Nigel Raine, Senior Lecturer in Animal Behaviour at Royal Holloway, University of London has revealed how a special plant-ant relationship thrives on give and take for mutual benefit.
Plants & Animals
Jan 4, 2010
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A new study reveals the reason why orchids use sexual trickery to lure insect pollinators. The study, published in the January issue of The American Naturalist, finds that sexual deception in orchids leads to a more efficient ...
Plants & Animals
Dec 17, 2009
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New research by the Laboratory of Apiculture and Social Insects (LASI) at the University of Sussex shows that natural selection will cause flowers to produce less nectar when pollinators are abundant, and vice versa.
Plants & Animals
Aug 5, 2021
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For the very first time, researchers from the University of Bristol have measured farmland nectar supplies throughout the whole year and revealed hungry gaps when food supply is not meeting pollinator demand. This novel finding ...
Ecology
May 1, 2019
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