Hummingbirds accelerate bromeliad evolution at twice the rate of other pollinators

In the high mountain forests of the Americas, hummingbirds have long served as more than pollinators — they have been sculptors of biological diversity, driving bromeliad plants to split into new species at twice the rate of any other pollinator. A University of Reading study tracing 403 bromeliad species reveals the depth of this ancient partnership, while also exposing its fragility: with 81% of bromeliads and one in ten hummingbird species now facing extinction pressure, millions of years of co-evolution stand at a threshold. The same intimacy that accelerated life's flowering may now haste