Not just Bees, even butterflies are great pollinators; a study in Pune reveals
Akanksha Kumari
Two students of Abasaheb Garware college in Pune studied the pattern of pollination on Pune’s popular hills, Vetal tekdi and Taljai hills and found out that not just bees not even butterflies have great contribution in pollination. Pratiksha Mestry, a student of Abasaheb Garware college has found out that 48 butterflies have greatly contributed in pollination process of flowers in 44 species of plants.
Pratiksha conducted this study on ARAI hills, Taljai hills, Amboli and Shilim. She is a student of bio diversity department of the college and has been guided by Prof Ankur Patwardhan, HOD, Abasaheb Garware college.
Information shared by Patwardhan, he said, “Out of 2 lac animals species that provide pollination service, 95% are insects .World’s 75% flowering plants depend on animals, mainly insects, for pollination. Butterflies are next to honeybees as pollinators. Every third bite of food that we eat is product of pollination, Pollintopn-Human’s Well Being is intricately linked.”
Another student of the department Shivani Kulkarni conducted a study on the nectar and floral visitors focusing on the diversity, floral vegetation and nectar. Dr Ankur Patwardhan, Researcher & professor in Biodiversity of Abasaheb Garware College guided the two girls to make research and help in deep study of butterfly pollination.He mainly focused on scientific methodology and future research. They also studied the population of butterflies.
They have done an in depth study of butterflies behavior and its been two years since they started the detailed study of butterfly pollination. They have also presented their work at international conference, Patwardhan added.
