Although research on plant volatiles and pollination ecology has grown explosively over the past 15 years, there remains little dialogue between these fields. Here I examine the historical and cultural reasons for this impasse, focusing on the ways that questions in each field are addressed, and the potential for productive cross‐talk. The specialization–generalization debate in pollination has cast doubt on the importance of sensory biology in mediating plant–pollinator interactions on the community scale. However, chemical ‘filters’ of volatile or nectar‐borne repellents are likely to explain the absence of specific interactions in plant–pollinator webs. In addition, the omission of plant volatiles from path analyses measuring the relative impacts of herbivores and pollinators on plant fitness may be one reason for large unexplained variance terms in such models. Floral scent functions in concert with visual and gustatory cues by attracting pollinators from a distance, increasing approaches and landings, and mediating outcrossing rates through changes in visitation frequency and duration. All dimensions of floral chemistry, including ontogenetic and diel variation in scent emissions, have the potential to respond to balancing selection between herbivores and pollinators. The available data reveal that chemical aspects of floral phenotypes are important across the specialization–generalization spectrum, and thus are widely applicable to mainstream pollination ecology.

The attention of the global pollination community has been drawn to food safety and other ecosystem services provided by pollinators, in light of decline in social bee populations. Despite intensified research on bees, recent studies have revealed important contributions of flies to pollination success, reproductive isolation and floral diversification. Diptera is a highly diverse insect order, comprising over 125,000 described species in 110 families and representing a broad spectrum of ecological niches beyond the well-known agricultural pests and blood-feeding vectors of human and animal diseases. Flies are most appreciated as generalized pollinators in alpine habitats (anthomyiids and tachinids) and as specialized pollinators in brood-site deceptive plants that mimic fungi (drosophilids), feces (muscids) or carrion (sarcophagids and calliphorids). Syrphid and bombyliid flies visit many of the same flowers as bees and butterflies do, but with different impacts on plant fitness. Guilds of South African plants have evolved specialized relationships with long-tongued nemestrinid and tabanid flies, thanks to geographic isolation and climatic stability. Studies in Japan highlight the evolution of another plant guild, pollinated by sciarid and mycetophilid fungus gnats, whereas Zygothrica flies (Drosophilidae) pollinate mushroom-like Dracula orchids in Andean cloud forests.

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Solitary insects that feed on floral nectar must use innate knowledge to find their first flower. While innate preferences for flower colours are often described as fixed, species-specific traits, the nature and persistence of these preferences have been debated, particularly in relation to ontogenetic processes such as learning. Here we present evidence for a strong context-dependence of innate colour preferences in the crepuscular hawkmoth Manduca sexta. Contrary to expectations, our results show that innate colour biases shift with changes in the visual environment, namely illuminance and background. This finding reveals that innate responses might emerge from a contextual integration of sensory inputs involved in object class recognition rather than from the deterministic matching of such inputs with a fixed internal representation.