CNN News:研究表明飞蛾在授粉过程中发挥重要作用

Salt Marsh, Atlas and Indian Meal are all types of what? Vultures, moths, herbs or peat. These are all types of moths, insects that often fly by night.
Those are just three of the 160,000 species of moths and new research suggests they may play an important role in pollination. How do scientists know this? A few years ago in Norfolk, England, researchers swabbed more than 800 moths and then studied the pollen on them. It wasn't a direct study of pollination, the process that fertilizes plants and produces seeds, but instead a look at how pollen is transported.
That's an important early part of the pollination process. Scientists found that more than 45 percent of the moths they studied had visited dozens of different plant species during the night, including some that bees and butterflies didn't visit during the day.

And researchers say this adds to the importance of conserving the insects because like bee populations, moth populations are decreasing worldwide.
Scientists say to address that, people should reduce the use of pesticides when possible and make sure that moths have a food source and an undisturbed place to live. Their research was published in the "Journal Biology Letters".