Cognitive Ecology of Pollination : Animal Behaviour and Floral Evolution

Recent advances have been made in our understanding of the cognitive and sensory abilities of pollinators and their consequences for floral evolution. This book integrates the work of evolutionary ecologists and neuroethologists to describe how pollinating animals have influenced the extraordinary variety of floral colour, form and scent in nature.

Important breakthroughs have recently been made in our understanding of the cognitive and sensory abilities of pollinators: how pollinators perceive, memorise and react to floral signals and rewards; how they work flowers, move among inflorescences and transport pollen. These new findings have obvious implications for the evolution of floral display and diversity, but most existing publications are scattered across a wide range of journals in very different research traditions. This book brings together for the first time outstanding scholars from many different fields of pollination biology, integrating the work of neuroethologists and evolutionary ecologists to present a multi-disciplinary approach. Aimed at graduates and researchers of behavioural and pollination ecology, plant evolutionary biology and neuroethology, it will also be a useful source of information for anyone interested in a modern view of cognitive and sensory ecology, pollination and floral evolution.