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Slippery flowers help deter nectar-stealing ants
Though ants frequently form mutualisms with plants for the purposes of seed dispersal, they are only rarely involved in pollination. More often, when it comes to flowers, ants impact plants...
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How will plants cope with fewer pollinators?
The numbers of flying insects are decreasing. There are now fewer bees, flies, moths, beetles and butterflies around to visit flowers and move pollen between plants. Now, Pierre-Olivier Cheptou, an...
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Indirect effects of drought on bumblebee pollination of common charlock
Flowers are multimodal displays that plants use to attract pollinators and ensure pollination. Under dry conditions, plants can reduce their flower number and size to save water. However, reducing the...
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Sub-lethal pesticides might still kill ecosystems
Understanding how plants and pollinators interact isn’t easy when humans interfere. Spraying crops with lethal doses of pesticide is an excellent way to break any link between pollinators and plants....
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Honey bees are bad news for some plants in search of pollination
You can listen to this page as an audio file. https://anchor.fm/botanyone/episodes/Honey-bees-are-bad-news-for-some-plants-in-search-of-pollination-e16p6er It’s easy to see why bees have such a good...
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The colour of background vegetation reveals how bees see flowers
You can listen to this post as an audio file. https://anchor.fm/botanyone/episodes/The-colour-of-background-vegetation-reveals-how-bees-see-flowers-e1714gm Wherever you go outside, chances are you’ll...
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What happens when pollinators bring the wrong pollen?
Explaining what plants are where is one of the goals of ecology. How do plants compete for space? In a Viewpoint article in Annals of Botany, Gerardo Arceo-Gómez argues that while there is a lot of...
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Flowers grow less yellow without sulphur, and that could affect the...
Plants use a variety of pigments to create the colours of their petals. These pigments are complex chemicals. If the plant doesn’t have access to the right nutrients, then its flowers will suffer. But...
View ArticleAsian squirrels go nuts for nectar
You can listen to this page as an audio file. When you think of a pollinator, you’re probably thinking of something that buzzes. For a lot of the public pollinator means bee, though many invertebrates...
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When foraging for pollen from flowers, timing can be crucial
You can listen to this page as an audio file. Some bees have evolved to visit flowers in twilight. New research by Priscila De Cássia Souza Araújo and colleagues finds that the shift to dawn and dusk...
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