Laws of attraction: Pollinators use multiple cues to identify flowers across continents

Although at least 75% of our crop species depend on the activities of wild pollinators, little is known about their flower preferences. As global populations of domestic bee pollinators decline, it is of utmost importance for us to understand what factors attract wild pollinators such as hoverflies to flowers, and how these preferences differ in the face of environmental change. Now, a team of scientists from Uppsala and Flinders University and the National Centre for Biological Sciences (NCBS) have discovered that hoverflies, a group of generalist pollinators, use a combination of cues such as color, shape and scent to identify flowers.