Role of bumblebees (Hymenoptera: Apidae) in pollination of high land ecosystems: A review Parrey Aejaz H., Raina Rifat H.*, Saddam Babu, Pathak Purnima, Kumar Sanjeev, Uniyal V.P.1, Gupta Devanshu2, Khan Sajad A.3 Desert Regional Centre, Zoological Survey of India, Jodhpur-342 005, Rajasthan, India 1Wildlife Institute of India, Chandrabani, Dehradun-248 001, Uttarakhand, India 2Zoological Survey of India, Kolkata-700 053, West Bengal, India 3Department of Zoology, School of Bioscience and Biotechnology, Baba Ghulam Shah Badshah University, Rajouri-185 234, Jammu and Kashmir, India *Corresponding Author: Rifat H. Raina, Desert Regional Centre, Zoological Survey of India, Jodhpur-342 005, Rajasthan, India, Email: rifat72001@rediffmail.com
Online Published on 01 October, 2022. Abstract Bumblebees are one among the anthophilous form and play a significant role in the pollination of major agricultural crops like medicinal, aromatic, ornamental and various other horticultural plants. They are abundant and mostly confined to flowers present in the temperate, alpine and arctic climates of the northern continents. The bumblebees are considered as most important pollinators and are mainly responsible for the conservation of high altitude vegetation germplasm where other insect pollinators are very much limited. They are more successful pollinators and can visit large number of flowers per minute than other bees and are perfect for picking up and transferring appreciable amount of compatible pollen to flowers and thus perform buzz pollination. It is quite evident that the population of bumblebee is gradually declining throughout the globe for the last 7 decades due to agricultural intensification, habitat loss, deforestation, overgrazing, pesticide poisoning and climate change. The present paper addresses this issue on the basis of literature survey. Top Keywords Agricultural, Aromatic, Bumblebees, Ecosystems, High-land, Medicinal, Pollination. Top |