Abstract:
Relationships between flowers and birds have an evolutionary history stretching back at least 50 million years, have been documented by indigenous cultures for more than a millennium and by scientists for over 300 years. Although we have learned a great deal about bird pollination during that time, much of that understanding comes from studies of a limited set of three bird families. Pollination by hummingbirds, honeyeaters and sunbirds is well recognised as being ecologically important and has driven the evolution of flower traits such as shape, size, colour and scent. However, at least 74 other families of birds belonging to 11 orders are known or suspected pollinators. This phylogenetic diversity challenges our understanding of how disparate bird biologies mould flower evolution and how these “other” birds fit into wider networks of plant-pollinators interactions. We currently estimate that bird pollinated flowers account for about 20,000 species, or less than 10% of angiosperm diversity. This is almost certainly an under-estimate because many bird-pollinated flowers do not fit our preconceived ideas about “ornithophilous” flowers traits. Insect pollination long predates bird pollination in the evolutionary history of the flowering plants, so another challenge is to understand the circumstances under which flowers switch from insects to birds. Explanations for the switch usually invoke the more effective long distance gene flow that birds can provide, but this is at odds with the observation that bird pollination often spurs the diversification of plant clades. Bird pollination, despite its familiarity, still raises many unanswered questions.
Speaker: Prof. Jeff Ollerton
Affiliation: Kunming Institute of Botany, Chinese Academy of Sciences & University of Northampton, U.K.
Time: 3:00 PM, Tuesday, June 25, 2024
Venue: Offline: The Conference Hall in Xishuangbanna Headquarter
Online: Tencent Conference Platform ID：825-407-748
