Fungus gnats might not be a glamorous group of insects but they are important pollinators, especially attracted to plants with dark red flowers. Not much is known about their pollination behaviour and plant species-specificity as they are especially hard to observe in the field. Plants with pitchers, however, provide an opportunity to study the trapped pollinators.

Dr Tetsuya Matsumoto and colleagues from Okayama University and Center for Biodiversity, Forestry and Forest Products Research Institute investigated three pollination barriers (geography, time, pollinator species) amongst five Arisaema species along an altitudinal gradient at a Japanese skiing resort. Fungus gnats were the main pollinators of the five species and all reproductive barriers were strong, making these plant-pollinator interactions highly vulnerable to habitat disturbances. Dr Matsumoto recently found that an Arisaema species that can reproduce via clonal propagation could persist more in an intensively grazed plot than a sexually-reproducing Arisaema species.