Study and write about the flowers adapted to pollination by insect

Bees Bees are perhaps the most important pollinator of many garden plants and most commercial fruit trees. The most common species of bees are bumblebees and honeybees. Since bees cannot see the color red, bee-pollinated flowers usually have shades of blue, yellow, or other colors. Bees collect energy -rich pollen or nectar for their survival and energy needs. They visit flowers that are open during the day, are brightly colored, have a strong aroma or scent, and have a tubular shape, typically with the presence of a nectar guide. A nectar guide includes regions on the flower petals that are visible only to bees, which help guide bees to the center of the flower, thus making the pollination process more efficient. The pollen sticks to the bees’ fuzzy hair; when the bee visits another flower, some of the pollen is transferred to the second flower. Recently, there have been many reports about the declining population of honeybees. Many flowers will remain unpollinated, failing to bear seeds if honeybees disappear. The impact on commercial fruit growers could be devastating. Figure \(\PageIndex\): Pollination by insects: Insects, such as bees, are important agents of pollination. Bees are probably the most important species of pollinators for commercial and garden plant species. Flies Many flies are attracted to flowers that have a decaying smell or an odor of rotting flesh. These flowers, which produce nectar, usually have dull colors, such as brown or purple. They are found...

Authors • Ruby E. Stephens PhD Candidate, School of Natural Sciences, Macquarie University • Hervé Sauquet Senior Research Scientist, Royal Botanic Gardens Sydney and Adjunct Associate Professor, UNSW Sydney • Lily Dun Research Assistant, UNSW Sydney • Rachael Gallagher Associate Professor, Hawkesbury Institute for the Environment, Western Sydney University • Will Cornwell Associate Professor in Ecology and Evolution, UNSW Sydney Disclosure statement Ruby E. Stephens receives funding from the Australian Government's Research Training Program. Hervé Sauquet receives funding from the Australian Research Council and Australian Research Data Commons. Lily Dun received funding from Australian Research Data Commons. Rachael Gallagher receives funding from The Australian Research Council. Will Cornwell does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment. Partners Plants existed on Earth for hundreds of millions of years before the first flowers bloomed. But when flowering plants did evolve, more than 140 million years ago, they were a huge evolutionary success. What pollinated these first flowering plants, the ancestor of all the flowers we see today? Was it insects carrying pollen between those early flowers, fertilising them in the process? Or perhaps other animals, or even wind or water? The question has been a tricky one ...

In cross-pollination, pollen grains are carried from one flower’s anther to the stigma of a separate flower, resulting in a more complicated sort of pollination than the simple type. Tulips, dandelions, and daffodils are the most well-known examples of flowers that have been cross-pollinated. Difference Agent of Pollination • The wind serves as the pollination agent. • Insects are the pollination agents in this case. The morphological characteristics of a flower • The wind-pollinated flowers have light-colored petals and do not have a particularly nice strong scent. • The insect-pollinated blossoms have vividly coloured petals and a rich scent that is pleasant to the senses. Pollen Grains are a type of grain that contains pollen. • In flowers that are pollinated by the wind, the pollen grains that are produced are smaller and lighter in weight, making them easier to transport by the wind. • In insect-pollinated flowers, the pollen grains generated are larger in size, sticky, and spiky, which aids the insect in transporting the pollen grains to the pollinator. Stigma • Stigma is feathery or sticky in texture, and it is found hanging out of flowers’ petals. • The stigma is tiny and is located deep within the petals of the flower. Stamens • The stamens are lengthy and visible when the petals are removed. • Stamens can be small and buried among the petals of flowers. In many cases, the anthers of the flower are visible being sustained outside of the bloom. The anthers are loca...

What pollinated these first flowering The question has been a tricky one to answer. However, in new research published in New Phytologist, we show the first pollinators were most likely insects. What's more, despite some evolutionary detours, around 86% of all flowering plant species throughout history have also relied on insects for pollination. How to move pollen The timing of the evolution of the first flowering plants is still Around 90% of modern plants—some 300,000-400,000 species—are flowering plants, or what scientists call angiosperms. To reproduce, these plants make pollen in their flowers, which needs to be transferred to another flower to fertilize an ovule and produce a viable seed. Small and highly mobile, insects can be highly effective pollen transporters. Indeed, recent Flowers have evolved every sort of shape and colour to get themselves pollinated. Credit: Ruby E Stephens, Author provided Most of today's flowering plants rely on insects for pollination. The plant's flowers have evolved to attract insects via color, scent and even sexual mimicry, and most reward them with nectar, pollen, oils or other types of food, making the relationship beneficial to both parties. Some flowers, however, rely on other means to transport their pollen, such as Which kind of pollination evolved first? Were insects there at the beginning, or were they a later "discovery"? While The evolutionary tree for all flowering plant families shows when wind, water and vertebrate poll...

The earliest flowers on Earth, emerging over 140 million years ago, were likely pollinated by insects, new research has found. Bee pollination: This pictured Australian reed bee (Exoneura sp.) is shown pollinating a native daisy flower (Asteraceae) in the NSW Snowy Mountains. Image credit Ruby Stephens Ruby Stephens, a PhD candidate in botanical science at Macquarie University, worked with a team of Australian scientists to develop an evolutionary tree tracking the pollination of more than a thousand species of flowering plants across all of the Earth’s 434 flowering plant families. “Mapping backwards from today’s species, tracking plants from what pollinates them today, we can work out how their ancestors were likely to have been pollinated,” Ms Stephens says. Ninety percent of the plants alive today are flowering plants (angiosperms); and most of these are insect-pollinated, says Ms Stephens, with the rest pollinated by wind, vertebrates like birds and bats, and a few by water. She says most of the attributes of animal-pollinated flowers – their scent, colours and shapes – have evolved to maximise the plants’ attractiveness to insects and other animals. “At least 90 per cent of the flowering plants in my research, were animal pollinated,” says Stephens. Mapping the data The research involved a huge taxonomic exercise, comparing key features across around 1200 different species of flowering plants from around the world, Stephens says. Dual pollination: Some flowers like t...

4 Cell Structure • Introduction • 4.1 Studying Cells • 4.2 Prokaryotic Cells • 4.3 Eukaryotic Cells • 4.4 The Endomembrane System and Proteins • 4.5 The Cytoskeleton • 4.6 Connections between Cells and Cellular Activities • Key Terms • Chapter Summary • Visual Connection Questions • Review Questions • Critical Thinking Questions • 6 Metabolism • Introduction • 6.1 Energy and Metabolism • 6.2 Potential, Kinetic, Free, and Activation Energy • 6.3 The Laws of Thermodynamics • 6.4 ATP: Adenosine Triphosphate • 6.5 Enzymes • Key Terms • Chapter Summary • Visual Connection Questions • Review Questions • Critical Thinking Questions • 7 Cellular Respiration • Introduction • 7.1 Energy in Living Systems • 7.2 Glycolysis • 7.3 Oxidation of Pyruvate and the Citric Acid Cycle • 7.4 Oxidative Phosphorylation • 7.5 Metabolism without Oxygen • 7.6 Connections of Carbohydrate, Protein, and Lipid Metabolic Pathways • 7.7 Regulation of Cellular Respiration • Key Terms • Chapter Summary • Visual Connection Questions • Review Questions • Critical Thinking Questions • 14 DNA Structure and Function • Introduction • 14.1 Historical Basis of Modern Understanding • 14.2 DNA Structure and Sequencing • 14.3 Basics of DNA Replication • 14.4 DNA Replication in Prokaryotes • 14.5 DNA Replication in Eukaryotes • 14.6 DNA Repair • Key Terms • Chapter Summary • Visual Connection Questions • Review Questions • Critical Thinking Questions • 15 Genes and Proteins • Introduction • 15.1 The Genetic Code • 15.2...