Cognitive Ecology of Pollination Animal Behaviour and Floral Evolution [Paperback]

Describes the cognitive and sensory abilities of pollinating animals and their implications for floral evolution.Recent advances have been made in our understanding of how pollinating animals, particularly insects, perceive, memorize, and react to flowers; how they move along inflorescences and transport pollen. Sixteen chapters in this book describe the cognitive and sensory abilities of pollinators and how they have influenced the extraordinary variety of floral colour, form, and scent that we can observe in nature. Aimed at graduates and researchers, it integrates the work of evolutionary ecologists and neuroethologists for a multi-disciplinary approach to pollination biology.Recent advances have been made in our understanding of how pollinating animals, particularly insects, perceive, memorize, and react to flowers; how they move along inflorescences and transport pollen. Sixteen chapters in this book describe the cognitive and sensory abilities of pollinators and how they have influenced the extraordinary variety of floral colour, form, and scent that we can observe in nature. Aimed at graduates and researchers, it integrates the work of evolutionary ecologists and neuroethologists for a multi-disciplinary approach to pollination biology.Important breakthroughs have recently been made in our understanding of the cognitive and sensory abilities of pollinators, such as how pollinators perceive, memorize, 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 outstanding scholars from many different fields of pollination biology, integrating the work of neuroethologists and evolutionary ecologists to present a multidisciplinary approach.Preface; 1. The effect of variation al£%