An overview of insect pollinators of temperate fruit crops

Pollinator communities are well known to vary considerable across environmental gradients and among bio-geographic regions. In temperate fruit crops, a variety of insects have been reported to visit the blossoms. But all the visitors do not qualify to be termed as pollinators because a harmony is needed amongst blossom and pollinators for accomplishment of pollination. For this purpose, pollination indices, calculated on the basis of relative abundance, foraging behaviour and morphometric traits, should be used. Even under the same environmental conditions, the pollination indices of different pollinators varied to a great extent on different temperate fruit crops. Honey bees belonging to Apis have surpassed all other insect pollinators due to number of desired qualities and as such are being used as a reliable pollinator of apple crop in Himachal Pradesh. However, in cold desert areas, like Spiti valley of Himachal, where honey bees are not present in nature, the pollination of apple crop is being efficiently done by a variety of native pollinators.