Pollinators And Flower Relationships

Pollinators, flowers, and their relationship play an essential role in ecosystems. Pollinators are responsible for facilitating fertilization in flowering plants, which provides seed production in fruits and vegetables. Pollination is important in agricultural communities with the fertilization of crops. It is estimated that pollinators contribute to the global economy by adding 217 billion dollars from pollinating a vast array of crops (Gallai et al., 2009). The pollinator-flower relationship also helps in water filtration, flood and erosion management, wildlife support, and carbon sequestration (Pharo and Daily, 1998).
The relationship between pollinators and flowers can be classified as mutualistic because both entities benefit. Nectar (a mix of water, sucrose, glucose, and fructose; Chalcoff et al., 2006) produced by flowers plays a key role in ecological communities. Pollinators use the nectar as a nutrient, and in the process of obtaining nectar they also gather pollen to assist in fertilizing seeds of the plant. Nectar secretion of a flower seems to be the most important reward for pollinators, so flowers put a significant amount of energy into …show more content…
For instance, a study has been done on whether nectar production differs among flowering times, flower numbers, and the attractive traits on a flower (Lu et al., 2015. Another study examined whether the number of flowers that are open at one time may affect pollinator visitations (Rodriguez-Robles et al., 1992). There are numerous factors that may influence visitation rate of pollinators (Diagram 1). Hence, it is important to focus on few variables at a time when analyzing the relationship between pollinators and flowers. Another study shows that nectar secretion is increased early in the morning and declines in the evening due to an optimal temperature range for flowers that maximizes nectar production (Adgaba et al.,