NSERC - CANPOLIN (Canadian Pollination Initiative)

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The great majority of Canada's wild plant species are pollinated by animals, as are many of our crops, especially orchard fruit, oil seeds, and pasture species like clover. As these wild and managed pollinators forage for nectar and pollen, plants can use them as vehicles for the transportation of their pollen from flower to flower. In Canada, our animal pollinators are mainly insects (mostly bees, but also flies, butterflies, and moths) with a few species of hummingbirds also involved. It is now recognized, however, that ecosystems relying on animal pollination are in trouble all around the world because of declining pollinator numbers. This decline reduces the capacity of plants to produce fruits and seeds, and thus threatens ecosystem integrity as well as agricultural productivity. However, little is known about the diversity, abundance, and relative importance of animal pollinators in the functioning of our agricultural and wild ecosystems. The novel, multidimensional, approaches proposed by our Network to study both natural ecosystems and agricultural fields and orchards will generate new insights and much greater understanding of how Canadian plants and pollinators interact, between species and at the complex level of ecosystems and landscapes. One axis of the Network will concentrate on the efficiency and health of managed pollinators such as honeybees. Another will emphasize native pollinators, with the goal of maximizing their effectiveness in agriculture, forestry, and wildlands via habitat management. This research will include coordinated surveys of pollinators and studies on plant breeding and mating systems throughout Canada's ecoregions. A third axis concerns the economics of pollination, especially with regard to food security and climate change. A fourth, smaller emphasis of the Network will focus on pollination by wind among Canadian trees and grasses to test models of pollen dispersal by wind and forecasting useful to foresters and allergy sufferers.