Role of Bumblebees (Hymenoptera: Apidae) in Pollination of High Land Ecosystems: A Review

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.