Current knowledge of flower visitors and pollination in the Oriental Region is summarised. Much less is known about pollination than seed dispersal and the coverage of habitats and taxa in the region is very uneven. The available evidence suggests that pollination in lowland forests is dominated by highly social bees (mainly Trigona and Apis species), with beetles probably the next most important group, followed by other bees and flies. In comparison with the better-studied Neotropics, large solitary bees, moths, Lepidoptera and vertebrates are relatively less important. These differences are greatest in the canopy of the lowland dipterocarp forests of Southeast Asia, where they probably reflect the unique temporal pattern of floral resource availability resulting from ‘general flowering’ at supra-annual intervals. Apis bees (but not Trigona species) are also important in most montane, subtropical and non-forest habitats. Apart from the figs (Ficus spp.), there are few well-documented examples of plant species visited by a single potential pollinator and most plant-pollinator relationships in the region appear to be relatively generalised. The small sizes of most pollinators and the absence of direct human exploitation probably make pollination mutualisms less vulnerable to failure as a result of human impacts than dispersal mutualisms, but more subtle impacts, as a result of altered gene flows, are likely to be widespread. On current evidence, pollination systems in the Oriental Region do not require any specific conservation action, but this review reinforces arguments for making the preservation (or restoration) of habitat connectivity the major focus of Oriental conservation.

Vestigipoda maschwitzi Disney sp. nov. is described from females and larvae collected from a colony of Aenictus gracilis in Malaysia. It is the second species in this remarkable genus, the type species being associated with a different species of Aenictus in Malaysia.

Current knowledge of frugivory and seed dispersal by vertebrates in the Oriental Region is summarized. Some degree of frugivory has been reported for many fish and reptile species, almost half the genera of non-marine mammals and more than 40% of bird genera in the region. Highly frugivorous species, for which fruit dominates the diet for at least part of the year, occur in at least two families of reptiles, 12 families of mammals and 17 families of birds. Predation on seeds in fleshy fruits is much less widespread taxonomically: the major seed predators are colobine monkeys and rodents among the mammals, and parrots, some pigeons, and finches among the birds. Most seeds in the Oriental Region, except near its northern margins, are dispersed by vertebrate families which are endemic to the region or to the Old World. Small fruits and large, soft fruits with many small seeds are consumed by a wide range of potential seed dispersal agents, including species which thrive in small forest fragments and degraded landscapes. Larger, bigger-seeded fruits are consumed by progressively fewer dispersers, and the largest depend on a few species of mammals and birds which are highly vulnerable to hunting, fragmentation and habitat loss.