Nocturnal pollinators like this hawkmoth rely on scent cues to find flowers. Using faux flowers, researchers tested the insect’s ability to locate night-blooming flowers that are normally fragrant and those whose scent is degraded by pollutants. Here, the moth easily finds a fake bloom emitting the scent of a pale evening primrose. But when certain air pollutants that can build up at night were added to the mix, moths had trouble homing in on the blooms.
Read more: https://www.sciencenews.org/article/air-pollution-hard-pollinators-find-flowers
Video: Jeremy Chan/University of Washington, Seattle
Watch a pollinator check out a fake flower | Science News
