Orchid pollination: from Darwin to the present day

Abstract

In this year celebrating the bicentenary of the birth of Darwin and the sesquicentennial of the publication of Darwin's On the Origin of Species, the present paper aims to assess the impact of Darwin's legacy on the history of orchid pollination biology. To illustrate the major contribution of Darwin to this fascinating biological field, we focus on the large angraecoid orchid group and propose an overview of the complex relationships that these orchids have developed with specific pollinators. We further discuss how Darwin's seminal work on the angraecoid orchid Angraecum sesquipedale triggered the beginning of a long debate about the evolution of long floral spurs and why his idea of reciprocal evolution or ‘coevolution’ was one of the great contributions to evolutionary biology. 

Botanical Journal of the Linnean Society

Volume 161, Issue 1, pages 1–19, September 2009 

 

The Origin of Modern Biodiversity: Coevolution of Flowers and Insects

Browsing the web, I came across this blog "Teaching Biology", where a very comprehensive description of coevolution of flowers and pollinators is presented!

I am not going to copy-paste the content on this post, so see the page using the link!


http://bioteaching.wordpress.com/

An Orchid Explosion

Cool video showing another pollination system of orchids!
Watch it and let me know what you think!

Scent of death

The orchid Satyrium pumilum is able to attract insects by mimicking the smell of rotting flesh.
A new study comparing the scent of the orchids with that of roadkill is to be published in the Annals of Botany 

The author was puzzled by the shape of the flowers. They don't carry any nectar and even if they did, the spurs that would hold it are the wrong shape to feed any visitors. So how do they attract insects to pollinate their flowers?

Photos by Dennis Hansen