Pollination animal

Raguso, R. A. (2001). Floral scent, olfaction and scent-driven foraging behavior. In Cognitive Ecology of Pollination Animal Behavior and Floral Evolution, eds. L. Chittka and J. D. Thomson, pp. 83-105, Cambridge Cambridge University Press. 

The animals that carried out the pollen transfer of anthers to the stigma flowers are known pollinators, and can be insects like bees, bettles, flies, butterflies, wasps and moth birds -hummingbirds and parakeets and small mammals - bats, rodents, and marsupials (Malagodi-Braga, 2005). Among pollinators, animals of Insecta class are the most important, and in the order Hymenoptera you can find the major number of them. Honeybees are the most important pollinators available in the nature. 

The proper choice and appHcation of an insecticide for pest control are predicated upon factors, eg, the life history and ecology of the pest, the relation of pest population to economic damage, the effect of the insecticide on the pest or its plant or animal host, related organisms in the ecosystem, and proper timing of the appHcation to prevent illegal residues at harvest and to avoid damaging of bees and other pollinating insects. 

The widespread use of economic poisons has a definite impact on the animal complex on the face of the earth which provides our sustenance. Already we have seen the use of DDT for codling moth control on apples result in a relatively minor pest becoming a serious threat. The same material used as a wonder spray for fly control now fails, after a couple years of common usage, with the appearance of new, resistant strains of flies. Bees and other pollinating insects as well as helpful predators or parasites may be decimated and their important aid be lost by untimely or improper use of most of the newer insecticides. 

The flowers are small, about 1/5 of an inch long with five lobed corollas with five stamens and short filaments. The flowers are fragrant and form a flat-topped cluster (known as a corymbose cyme) with stalks of different lengths all growing to the same level. They bloom from the center outward. The flowers are often pollinated by flies and other insects. The purplish black berries, which ripen in September in the Northern Hemisphere, contain ovate greenish brown seeds. The berries are actually black, but have a powdery blush on them which makes them appear blue. There are often three seeds in each berry. Red berries, which should not be eaten, have too high a saponin content which even keeps animals from consuming them. Plants can usually reproduce by the time they are three to five years old. 

Apocarotenoids also act as chemoattractants, repellants, and growth effectors in plants and cyanobacteria. They attract pollinators to plants through the use of color similar to full-length carotenoids. Their aromas are thought to be attractants for animals and insects to facilitate in seed dispersal and pollination. Small volatile apocarotenoids lure pollinators and levels of apocarotenoids... 

Anthocyanins are colored flavonoids that attract animals when a flower is ready for pollination or a fruit is ready to eat. They are glycosides (i.e., the molecule contains a sugar) that range in color from red, pink, and purple to blue depending on the number and placement of substitutes on the B ring (see Fig. 3.7), the presence of acid residues, and the pH of the cell vacuole where they are stored. Without the sugar these molecules are called anthocyanidins. The color of some pigments results from a complex of different anthocyanin and flavone molecules with metal ions. 

Transactions between plants and pollinators go back millions of years and vary greatly from species to species, but they all have certain features in common. A plant s goal is to coax pollinators to call upon its flowers, so the animal can both pick up local pollen grains and leave pollen it has brought from afar. To attract attention, plants advertise their presence with color and fragrance. Taking advantage of pollinators color vision, their flowers have... 

Obviously, pollinators are indispensable to most flowering plants. What is more easily overlooked is that they are critical to our own survival as well. Agriculture feeds the world, and about two-thirds of the world s crops require visits by animal pollinators to set fruit and seed. Various kinds of bees pollinate 60 percent of these crop plants, honey bees being the most important single species in this regard. In the United States alone, their contribution to crop pollination is worth billions of dollars every year. 

Insofar as the cardboard palm and its weevil provide a good model, early insect-pollination must have been a rather messy, essentially accidental process. As time passed, however, interactions between plant and animal became more refined. For a more elegant arrangement, we return to flowering plants and consider the... 

A few other kinds of flowers have adopted the orchids trick of trading odoriferous chemicals for pollination. The bees also harvest chemicals from decaying, fungus-infected logs, rotting fruit, and animal feces. Chemicals from other flowers are similar to the ones from orchids, but decaying logs furnish substances not available elsewhere. 

Secondary compounds produced by plants may have other significant survival roles, such as signals to attract insects, birds, or other animals to enhance pollination or seed dispersal. In addition to any potential functions, secondary compounds may concomitantly serve a physiologic function, such as protection against ultraviolet (UV) light or frost, or provide a function in nitrogen transport and storage. In several instances, compounds can serve multiple functions in the same plant. Anthocyanins or monoterpenes can be... 

Many heterocyclic compounds are biosynthesized by plants and animals and are biologically active. Over millions of years these organisms have been under intense evolutionary pressure, and their metabolites may be used to advantage for example, as toxins to ward off predators, or as colouring agents to attract mates or pollinating insects. Some heterocycles are fundamental to life, such as haem derivatives in blood and the... 

The flavonoids are a remarkable group of plant metabolites. No other class of secondary product has been credited with so many — or such diverse — key functions in plant growth and development. Many of these tasks are critical for survival, such as attraction of animal vectors for pollination and seed dispersal, stimulation of Rhizobium bacteria for nitrogen fixation. 

Williams, N. H. (1983). Floral fragrances as cues in animal behavior. In Handbook of Experimental Pollination Biology, eds. . E. Jones, and R. J. Little, pp. 51-69. 

Replace the carboxyl group with a hydrogen and you have the structure of cadaverine. Interestingly, the voodoo lily transforms its lysine into cadaverine in order to attract pollinators, usually those that normally dine on the carcasses of dead animals. 

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