蚊子拜访花朵以获得糖或其他营养素,因此可能充当某些植物物种的主要或次要传粉者。它们还经常从其他来源获得植物营养,如花外蜜腺和蜜露。在少数情况下,植物和蚊子的关系很密切,蚊子授粉已经得到证实。大多数植物物种被蚊子访问,然而,似乎依赖于多种授粉手段,尤其是其他以花卉为食的昆虫。此外,大多数蚊子物种参观多种植物的花朵,可能以生物学上有意义和无关的方式传播花粉。植物和蚊子明显缺乏选择性,使它们都摆脱了对不可靠的花粉载体或营养源的依赖。对破坏性人类疾病病原体的两个顶级载体的假设授粉作用,冈比亚按蚊或埃及伊蚊,依靠间接证据。到目前为止,这些证据表明,他们参与花粉转移的本地,介绍,或有益的植物是微不足道的。可能被这些载体授粉的少数植物物种大多是侵入性的,与人类有关的有害杂草。该结论得到了这些载体的四个特征的支持:(1)他们访问的花朵的众多替代潜在传粉者;(2)他们共同使用各种非花来源的营养素;(3)雌性不经常进食糖并严重依赖人类血液获得能量;(4)它们的人口密度相对较低。从这些特征可以看出,集中抑制或消除这两个载体,无论如何,极不可能对地方性生物群落或观赏植物或粮食作物的授粉产生不利影响。
Mosquitoes visit flowers to obtain sugar or other nutrients and therefore possibly serve as major or minor pollinators of some plant species. They also often derive plant nutrients from other sources, such as extrafloral nectaries and honeydew. In a few cases, the plant-mosquito relationship is close, and mosquito pollination has been confirmed. Most plant species visited by
mosquitoes, however, appear to depend on multiple means of pollination, particularly other flower-feeding insects. In addition, most mosquito species visit the flowers of many kinds of plants, possibly dispersing pollen in both biologically meaningful and irrelevant ways. This apparent lack of selectivity by both plants and
mosquitoes liberates each of them from dependence on an unreliable pollen vehicle or nutrient source. A hypothetical pollinating role for the two top vectors of devastating human-disease pathogens, Anopheles gambiae or Aedes aegypti, relies on indirect evidence. So far, this evidence suggests that their participation in pollen transfer of native, introduced, or beneficial plants is negligible. The few plant species likely to be pollinated by these vectors are mostly invasive, harmful weeds associated with humans. That conclusion draws support from four characteristics of these vectors: (1) the numerous alternative potential pollinators of the flowers they visit; (2) their common use of diverse non-floral sources of nutrients; (3) the females\' infrequent sugar feeding and heavy reliance on human blood for energy; and (4) their relatively low population densities. From these traits it follows that focused suppression or elimination of these two vectors, by whatever means, is highly unlikely to have adverse effects on pollination in endemic biotic communities or on ornamental plants or food crops.