Annual Research & Review in Biology

Ants are ubiquitous floral visitors, yet their contribution to pollination has historically been regarded as exceptional because worker ants are flightless, often forage over short distances, may groom pollen from their bodies, and can carry antimicrobial secretions that impair pollen function. Indian evidence complicates this conventional view. This critical narrative review evaluates when ants act as pollinators, when they merely visit flowers, and when they disrupt established pollination mutualisms in Indian flora. Literature was selected through transparent searches of multidisciplinary, biological and agricultural scholarly sources, complemented by citation searching, with emphasis on Indian field studies and global mechanistic evidence from 1974 to 27 June 2026. The strongest Indian demonstrations occur in the Western Ghats rainforest tree Syzygium occidentale and the ant-adapted herb Euphorbia hirta, where exclusion or access experiments link ant visitation to reproductive output. Earlier work on Euphorbia heterophylla reported substantial ant visitation and preserved pollen viability but provides a less complete causal chain. By contrast, observations in monsoon cucurbits are hypothesis-generating rather than definitive, while studies of pumpkin and cashew show that ants can deter legitimate pollinators, prey on bees, damage reproductive structures or exploit nectar. Re-examination of evidence from Salacia gambleana and Salacia oblonga also illustrates why ant abundance at flowers should not be equated with pollination. Across systems, outcome depends on ant identity, floral architecture, pollen tolerance, reward placement, mating system, weather, phenology and the competing pollinator assemblage. The Indian literature is therefore better interpreted as a context-dependent continuum from mutualism to antagonism than as evidence for a uniform ant-pollination syndrome. Future progress requires species-level ant identification, manipulative exclusions, direct measurement of pollen deposition, pollen viability, seed quality and genetic mating outcomes across replicated habitats and seasons. Ants deserve greater attention in Indian pollination ecology, but functional claims should be made only when visitation is connected experimentally to plant reproduction.