Anthecology, or pollination biology, is the study of

pollination Pollination is the transfer of pollen from an anther of a plant to the stigma (botany), stigma of a plant, later enabling fertilisation and the production of seeds. Pollinating agents can be animals such as insects, for example bees, beetles or bu ...

as well as the relationships between

flowers Flowers, also known as blooms and blossoms, are the reproductive structures of flowering plants ( angiosperms). Typically, they are structured in four circular levels, called whorls, around the end of a stalk. These whorls include: calyx, m ...

and their pollinators. Floral biology is a bigger field that includes these studies. Most flowering plants, or

angiosperms Flowering plants are plants that bear flowers and fruits, and form the clade Angiospermae (). The term angiosperm is derived from the Greek words (; 'container, vessel') and (; 'seed'), meaning that the seeds are enclosed within a fruit. T ...

, are pollinated by animals, and especially by

insects Insects (from Latin ') are hexapod invertebrates of the class Insecta. They are the largest group within the arthropod phylum. Insects have a chitinous exoskeleton, a three-part body (head, thorax and abdomen), three pairs of jointed ...

. The major flower-frequenting insect taxa include

beetles Beetles are insects that form the Taxonomic rank, order Coleoptera (), in the superorder Holometabola. Their front pair of wings are hardened into wing-cases, elytra, distinguishing them from most other insects. The Coleoptera, with about 40 ...

flies Flies are insects of the Order (biology), order Diptera, the name being derived from the Ancient Greek, Greek δι- ''di-'' "two", and πτερόν ''pteron'' "wing". Insects of this order use only a single pair of wings to fly, the hindwin ...

wasps A wasp is any insect of the narrow-waisted suborder Apocrita of the order Hymenoptera which is neither a bee nor an ant; this excludes the broad-waisted sawflies (Symphyta), which look somewhat like wasps, but are in a separate suborder. Th ...

bees Bees are winged insects closely related to wasps and ants, known for their roles in pollination and, in the case of the best-known bee species, the western honey bee, for producing honey. Bees are a monophyletic lineage within the superfamil ...

ants Ants are eusocial insects of the family Formicidae and, along with the related wasps and bees, belong to the order Hymenoptera. Ants evolved from vespoid wasp ancestors in the Cretaceous period. More than 13,800 of an estimated total of ...

thrips Thrips (Order (biology) , order Thysanoptera) are minute (mostly long or less), slender insects with fringed wings and unique asymmetrical mouthparts. Entomologists have species description , described approximately 7,700 species. They fly on ...

butterflies Butterflies are winged insects from the lepidopteran superfamily Papilionoidea, characterized by large, often brightly coloured wings that often fold together when at rest, and a conspicuous, fluttering flight. The oldest butterfly fossi ...

, and

moths Moths are a group of insects that includes all members of the order Lepidoptera that are not butterflies. They were previously classified as suborder Heterocera, but the group is paraphyletic with respect to butterflies (suborder Rhopalocera) a ...

. Insects carry out pollination when visiting flowers to obtain

nectar Nectar is a viscous, sugar-rich liquid produced by Plant, plants in glands called nectaries, either within the flowers with which it attracts pollination, pollinating animals, or by extrafloral nectaries, which provide a nutrient source to an ...

pollen Pollen is a powdery substance produced by most types of flowers of seed plants for the purpose of sexual reproduction. It consists of pollen grains (highly reduced Gametophyte#Heterospory, microgametophytes), which produce male gametes (sperm ...

, to prey on other species, or when pseudo-copulating with insect-mimicking flowers such as

orchids Orchids are plants that belong to the family Orchidaceae (), a diverse and widespread group of flowering plants with blooms that are often colourful and fragrant. Orchids are cosmopolitan plants that are found in almost every habitat on Earth ...

. Pollination-related interactions between plants and insects are considered mutualistic, and the relationships between plants and their pollinators have likely led to increased diversity of both angiosperms and the animals that pollinate them. Anthecology brings together many disciplines, such as

botany Botany, also called plant science, is the branch of natural science and biology studying plants, especially Plant anatomy, their anatomy, Plant taxonomy, taxonomy, and Plant ecology, ecology. A botanist or plant scientist is a scientist who s ...

horticulture Horticulture (from ) is the art and science of growing fruits, vegetables, flowers, trees, shrubs and ornamental plants. Horticulture is commonly associated with the more professional and technical aspects of plant cultivation on a smaller and mo ...

entomology Entomology (from Ancient Greek ἔντομον (''éntomon''), meaning "insect", and -logy from λόγος (''lógos''), meaning "study") is the branch of zoology that focuses on insects. Those who study entomology are known as entomologists. In ...

, and

ecology Ecology () is the natural science of the relationships among living organisms and their Natural environment, environment. Ecology considers organisms at the individual, population, community (ecology), community, ecosystem, and biosphere lev ...

History

Anthecology began as a descriptive science relying on observation, and more recently has come to rely upon quantitative and experimental studies. By the 17th century, the sexual nature of plant reproduction was recognized following the work of

Nehemiah Grew Nehemiah Grew (26 September 164125 March 1712) was an English plant anatomist and physiologist, known as the "Father of Plant Anatomy". Biography Grew was the only son of Obadiah Grew (1607–1688), Nonconformist divine and vicar of St Mi ...

and the experiments of

Rudolf Jakob Camerarius Rudolf Jakob Camerarius or Camerer (12 February 1665 – 11 September 1721) was a German botanist and physician. Life Camerarius was born at Tübingen, and became professor of medicine and director of the botanical gardens at Tübingen in 1687 ...

, who showed that

pistillate Gynoecium (; ; : gynoecia) is most commonly used as a collective term for the parts of a flower that produce ovules and ultimately develop into the fruit and seeds. The gynoecium is the innermost whorl of a flower; it consists of (one or more) ...

plants need both male and female organs for reproduction.

Tulips Tulips are spring-blooming perennial herbaceous bulbiferous geophytes in the ''Tulipa'' genus. Their flowers are usually large, showy, and brightly coloured, generally red, orange, pink, yellow, or white. They often have a different coloure ...

and

maize Maize (; ''Zea mays''), also known as corn in North American English, is a tall stout grass that produces cereal grain. It was domesticated by indigenous peoples in southern Mexico about 9,000 years ago from wild teosinte. Native American ...

were popular subjects of study during this time. In 1735,

Carl Linnaeus Carl Linnaeus (23 May 1707 – 10 January 1778), also known after ennoblement in 1761 as Carl von Linné,#Blunt, Blunt (2004), p. 171. was a Swedish biologist and physician who formalised binomial nomenclature, the modern system of naming o ...

developed a "sexual system" of the classification of seed plants. In the mid-to-late 18th century, Joseph Gottlieb Kölreuter demonstrated that pollen must be transferred from

stamen The stamen (: stamina or stamens) is a part consisting of the male reproductive organs of a flower. Collectively, the stamens form the androecium., p. 10 Morphology and terminology A stamen typically consists of a stalk called the filament ...

to stigma for reproduction to occur, and also clarified the distinction between

and

honey Honey is a sweet and viscous substance made by several species of bees, the best-known of which are honey bees. Honey is made and stored to nourish bee colonies. Bees produce honey by gathering and then refining the sugary secretions of pl ...

. In the late 18th century,

Christian Konrad Sprengel Christian Konrad Sprengel (22 September 1750 – 7 April 1816) was a German naturalist, theologist, and teacher. He is most famous for his research on plant sexuality. Sprengel was the first to recognize that the function of flowers was to ...

showed evidence that flowers attract insects and reward them with nectar. Following the emergence of the Darwinian theory of

evolution Evolution is the change in the heritable Phenotypic trait, characteristics of biological populations over successive generations. It occurs when evolutionary processes such as natural selection and genetic drift act on genetic variation, re ...

in the late 19th century, scientists became keen to the selective advantage of

cross-pollination Xenogamy (Greek ''xenos''=stranger, ''gamos''=marriage) is the transfer of pollen grains from the anther to the stigma of a different plant. This is the only type of cross pollination which during pollination brings genetically different types of ...

. In an 1873 book, Hermann Müller made detailed observations of the particular relationships between certain insects and certain flowering plants, called pollination syndromes, and additional comprehensive surveys were made by

Paul Knuth Paul Erich Otto Wilhelm Knuth (20 November 1854 in Greifswald – 30 October 1900 in Kiel) was a 19th-century German botanist and pollination ecologist. He studied chemistry and natural history at the University of Greifswald and obtained his ...

. Anthecology went into decline for several decades, but the field was kept alive by several studies including those of

honey bees A honey bee (also spelled honeybee) is a eusocial flying insect within the genus ''Apis'' of the bee clade, all native to mainland Afro-Eurasia. After bees spread naturally throughout Africa and Eurasia, humans became responsible for the ...

Karl von Frisch Karl Ritter von Frisch, (20 November 1886 – 12 June 1982) was a German-Austrian ethology, ethologist who received the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1973, along with Nikolaas Tinbergen and Konrad Lorenz. His work centered on investi ...

in the mid 20th century. Anthecology gained a resurgence in the 20th century during the rise of

neo-Darwinism Neo-Darwinism is generally used to describe any integration of Charles Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection with Gregor Mendel's theory of genetics. It mostly refers to evolutionary theory from either 1895 (for the combinations of D ...

. Specific plant-insect interactions were further documented, with an emphasis on tropical anthecology, comparative anthecology, and

co-evolution In biology, coevolution occurs when two or more species reciprocally affect each other's evolution through the process of natural selection. The term sometimes is used for two traits in the same species affecting each other's evolution, as well a ...

. Today, the biology of pollination has attracted the attention of scientists, governments, and the media, following observations of rapid

pollinator decline Pollinator decline is the reduction in abundance of insect and other animal pollinators in many ecosystems worldwide that began being recorded at the end of the 20th century. Multiple lines of evidence exist for the reduction of wild pollinator p ...

in the late 20th century, including the unexplained and sudden disappearance of honey bees in a phenomenon known as

colony collapse disorder Colony collapse disorder (CCD) is an abnormal phenomenon that occurs when the majority of worker bees in a honey bee bee colony, colony disappear, leaving behind a queen bee, queen, plenty of food, and a few nurse bees to care for the remaining ...

References

External links

Anthecology — non-profit site on anthecology
{{Pollination Insect ecology Botany Pollination