In Asia, where palm trees are nonnative, the trees' flowers have traditionally been pollinated by hand, which has kept palm fruit productivity unnaturally low
When weevils known to be efficient pollinators of palm flowers were introduced into Asia in 1980, palm fruit productivity increased-by up to 50 percent in some areas-but then decreased sharply in 1984
Prior to 1980 another species of insect pollinated the Asian palm trees, but not as efficiently as the species of weevil that was introduced in 1980.