The relationship between flowers and insect pollinators is as old as time. It forms a crucial part of the novels of and beyond Shakespearean times. In Indian pop culture, the flower-insect ties were solemnised in a 1982 Hindi film 'Prem Rog' starring actors Rishi Kapoor and Padmini Kolhapure, in a song whose lyrics can be translated as -The bumblebee fed the flower, and the prince took it away.
But now climate change is altering this relationship that enables the sustenance of the food chain as we know it, and has also influenced literature and pop culture in immeasurable proportions.
According to a study published in the journal New Phytologist, flowers are now "giving up" on pollinators and evolving to be less attractive due to a decline in the number of insects.
The researchers found that flowers in a field of pansies near Paris are 10 per cent smaller and produce 20 per cent less nectar than flowers growing in the same fields 20 to 30 years ago. "Our study shows that pansies are evolving to give up on their pollinators," Pierre-Olivier Cheptou, one of the study's authors and a researcher at the French National Centre for Scientific Research said in an official statement.
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