News Release

Pollinator preference across environments

Peer-Reviewed Publication

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

Hoverfly

image: This is a hoverfly feeding from a canola plant in the Himalayas. view more 

Credit: Image by Karin Nordström.

To study the preferences of insect pollinators across environments, researchers sampled flowers for floral cues that attracted pollinators, namely hoverflies, in three environments: hemiboreal Sweden, the alpine Himalayas, and tropical South India; using artificial models based on floral cues, the authors found that some models attracted hoverflies in every environment, even though specific combinations of floral cues did not represent those of real flowers, findings with potential implications for establishing planting strategies resilient to environmental change, according to the authors.

Article #17-14414: "In situ modeling of multimodal floral cues attracting wild pollinators across environments," by Karin Nordström et al.

MEDIA CONTACT: Karin Nordström, Flinders University, Adelaide, AUSTRALIA; tel: +61-8-8204-4183, +61-417061042; e-mail: <karin.nordstrom@flinders.edu.au>; Shannon Olsson, National Centre for Biological Sciences, Bangalore, India; tel: +91 (0)80 23666412, +91 (0)80 67176412; email: <shannon@nice.ncbs.res.in>

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