Plant-pollinator Interactions: From Specialization to Generalization

Just as flowering plants depend on their pollinators, many birds, insects, and bats rely on plants for energy and nutrients. This plant-pollinator relationship is essential to the survival of natural and agricultural ecosystems. “Plant-Pollinator Interactions” portrays the intimate relationships of pollination over time and space and reveals patterns of interactions from individual to community levels, showing how these patterns change at different spatial and temporal scales. Nickolas M. Waser and Jeff Ollerton bring together experts from around the world to offer a comprehensive analysis of pollination, including the history of thinking about specialization and generalization and a comparison of pollination to other mutualisms. An overview of current thinking and of future research priorities, “Plant-Pollinator Interactions” covers an important theme in evolutionary ecology with far-reaching applications in conservation and agriculture. This book will find an eager audience in specialists studying pollination and other mutualisms, as well as with biologists who are interested in ecological, evolutionary, and behavioral aspects of the specialization and generalization of species.