Augmenting plant-pollinator interactions to promote biodiversity and global food security

Global agricultural production is currently limited by ongoing climate change. Approximately 90% of crop species and numerous wild plants are dependent on pollinators for reproduction. The global threat to pollinators posed by climate change has grown considerably, as higher temperatures, shifting rainfall patterns, and more frequent extreme weather events disrupt the fragile relationships between plants and their pollinators. The decline in pollinators is also linked to shifts in land use, the widespread adoption of monocropping, and heavy reliance on agrochemicals. Therefore, the protection of pollinators and the preservation of agrobiodiversity are essential to uphold global food systems. Here, we synthesize the adverse impact of climate change on plant-pollinator interactions; throughput assay for phenotyping floral traits; assessing variability and molecular basis of floral display (flower size, shape, color, attractants etc.) and reward (nectar volume and composition, pollen, and fragrance in case of ornamental plants) traits; crop domestication and inbreeding, ploidy and mating systems differences impacting plant-pollinator interactions; volatiles and metabolites mediating plant-pollinator relationships; trade-offs involving reproductive and pollinator traits; and finally, progress in developing pollinator-friendly crop cultivars through conventional plant breeding and biotechnological interventions. Pollinator-assisted phenotyping and selection platform (DARkWIN) combined with other high-throughput phenotyping assays, has the potential to simultaneously quantify multiple interactions impacting pollinators’ visitation and foraging behaviors, and generate data on other parameters like stress tolerance, yield, and nutrition in the target populations. Assessing and exploiting functional diversity for plant-pollinator interactions, combined with the use of functionally characterized genes and associated markers for floral display (AT2G31010, AT4G17080, CmGEG, CmCYC2c, CmJAZ1-like-CmBPE2, Cyc2CL-1, Cyc2CL-2) and reward (SWEET9, BrCWINV4A, EOBI, EOBII) traits, can be deployed in breeding programs to develop pollinator-friendly crop cultivars. Numerous candidate genes, reported herein, must be functionally validated before being deployed in crop breeding programs.