This symposium will explore the crucial role of pollination interactions within tropical ecosystems, highlighting both the threats they face and the opportunities for their conservation and restoration. Pollination is a vital ecological process that supports biodiversity and ecosystem functioning, but it is vulnerable to anthropogenic pressures including pollution, habitat loss and fragmentation, invasive species, and climate change. Tropical ecosystems, which host a rich diversity of pollinators and plants, are particularly sensitive to global changes, making it critical to increase our understanding of pollination systems and find adaptive solutions for their restoration and conservation in these regions.

This session will include recent research on pollination interactions, focusing on community and ecosystem-level approaches that consider the complexity of the ecological contexts that affect directly or indirectly pollination interactions. We will explore projects that cover a diversity of approaches, from analyses based on paleoecology, ecological networks, long-term monitoring, chemical ecology, and experimental approaches to projects involving community participation and spatially-explicit modelling of the restoration of pollination services in tropical habitats. By bringing together different perspectives, the session aims to provide a comprehensive understanding of the current state of pollination ecology in the tropics and the challenges it faces in the context of climate change and habitat loss.

The goals of this symposium are to present cutting-edge work on pollination interactions in tropical ecosystems and to inspire new collaborations among researchers, conservationists, and practitioners. This symposium will feature talks by university professors, postdocs, graduate students, and conservation practitioners, offering a wide range of perspectives and levels of expertise. It will provide a unique opportunity to exchange knowledge and foster international research networks focused on the conservation of pollination services in the tropics and beyond. By participating, attendees will gain valuable insights into the future of pollination ecology and evolution, as well as the potential for collaboration to address urgent challenges that threaten pollination systems, while also recognising the opportunity to engage local knowledge in joint restoration and conservation efforts.