Pollinators carry pollen from plant to plant and, often unwittingly, play a crucial role in plant reproduction. Bees are the most familiar pollinators, but plants attract thousands of different types of animals - using all sorts of alluring strategies: colour, scent, structure - to carry out this ecosystem role. Some of the larger active species include fruit bats, hummingbirds and even lemurs. Without pollinators millions of human beings would starve, as most of our crops depend on them.
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The Nature of Britain: Farmland
Series on British wildlife, presented by Alan Titchmarsh.
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On the final stage of his epic journey, Valmik travels to the lush monsoon forests of Assam,South India's Western Ghats and across the sea to Sri Lanka.
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A pollinator is the biotic agent (vector) that moves pollen from the male anthers of a flower to the female stigma of a flower to accomplish fertilization or syngamy of the female gamete in the ovule of the flower by the male gamete from the pollen grain. Though the terms are sometimes confused, a pollinator is different from a pollenizer, which is a plant that is a source of pollen for the pollination process.
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