Pollination Adaptations Pollination Adaptations Flowers need to be pollinated. Pollination is the process of moving the pollen grain from the anther of a stamen to the stigma of a carpel. There are a few flowers that can self-pollinate all on their own, but this limits them to inbreeding.
Most species rely upon some kind of pollination vector to accomplish pollination.
The vector can be any agent that can move pollen from anther to stigma. There is evidence of water and wind as the pollination vector in certain species, but many species do not depend upon the random or downstream-only pollination pathways offered by these vectors. Indeed such vectors are only useful in situations where large populations of a very limited number of species are present. These vectors have sensory organs to locate flowers, they have locomotion to get them to the flowers in spite of large spaces between individuals, and they have enough intelligence to remember that they can depend upon a reward if they visit one particular species repeatedly. In order to effectively use an animal pollination vector, a flower needs to attract the animal for the first visit.