Pollination is the process of transferring pollen one flower to another flower which causes fertilization. Pollinators are an very important part of the reproductive cycle for plants, and farmers need them, too. According to the Food and Agriculture of the United Nations “United States Department of Agriculture, one third of agricultural production in the U.S. depends on pollinators”. Most of our food comes from pollinators. Pollinators can be small insects, such as a bee or butterflies, moths or even mammals such as bats. They are important for the functioning of many ecosystems for many of agricultural crops. Apples require pollination because they are self infertile, which means that the pollen has to come flowers of another variety. Pollinators also help in the production of alfalfa, which is needed for cows, meaning that pollinators are important for our dairy products as well. Other things people overlook is how pollinators are needed for things such as spices like cardamom, coriander and fennel. Vanilla is also comes from pollination of orchids. Coffee and chocolate also require insect pollination.
Although pollinators help produce food, food isn't the only thing, but also plants used to create medicines and some beverages need pollination to occur. Unfortunately, one of the world’s most successful pollinating animals are endangered or at risk, and there are necessary changes that must occur in order to save them.
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Many plants rely heavily on bees as their main pollinator to reproduce. The main fear is that even though many flowers also rely on mammals and other insects to assist in the pollination process, bees are the biggest and most vital source of this life cycle. As the bees disappear the reproduction process of many plants does not happen as efficiently thus less plants are produced, this
Furthermore bees specifically are particularly efficient with it being estimated that they are the sole pollinators for 50% of the approximate 80% of flowering plants which rely on insects for pollination (Bradbear, 2009). Their efficiency is further illustrated by the fact that a single colony containing 25,000 forager bees is able to pollinate 250 million flowers per day (Bradbear, 2009). As a result of this it can be seen that bees are hugely important as pollinators with many species of flower being completely dependent on them. Furthermore, the importance of bees extends beyond ecological diversity; certain types of bees are hugely important economically. In addition to pollinating a large variety of fruit and vegetables, bees produce Honey; together this results in them having an estimated value of service of £200m a year in the UK (National Audit Office (NAO), 2009). Overall it can be seen that bees are of significant importance that any decrease in population should be treated with concern, as a result of this a large quantity of research has been conducted into identifying possible
Since the late 1990s, beekeepers around the world have observed the mysterious and sudden disappearance of bees, and report unusually high rates of decline in honeybee colonies. Bees do more than just make honey! Bee transfer pollen and seeds from one flower to another, fertilizing the plant so it can grow and produce food. Cross-pollination helps at least 30 percent of the world's crops and 90% affects our food. The sweet fruits humans eat such as, strawberries, mangoes, grapes, apples, and bananas would not be the same taste wise as they are now. We simply couldn’t live in the same world if it weren’t for the bees.
In this chapter the author stresses the importance of creatures that pollinate such as insects, birds,
Pollination is essentially plant reproduction - without help from animal pollinators, our everyday food supply would look much different
What you may not know is that honeybees play a huge roll in America’s agriculture, whether it is pollinating alfalfa hay to feed your horse or pollinating that apple you eat every morning for breakfast. Honeybees pollinate about one-third of crops species in the U.S. (Vanishing Bees, 2008). Bees pollinate a lot more than you would think a few more examples are almonds, avocadoes, cucumbers and peanuts.
Bees pollinating crops produce every third mouthful of food we eat. Bees contribute to thirty- five Percent of global food production, 87 of the leading 115 food crops are dependent on animal pollinators, including bees. (The United States White House, 2014). Without bees pollinating plants, there would not be very many fruits or vegetables to eat, Bees transfer pollen between the male and female parts, allowing plants to grow seeds and fruit. In the last decade scientist and beekeepers have observed remarkable decline of bees, in the US alone 30% of the national bee population has disappeared and nearly a third of all bee colonies in the U.S. have
These species include bees, such as the western honey bee, along with flies, beetles, moths, and butterflies. Pollination, as far as honey bees are concerned, is a process where honey bees legs get coated in pollen which they transfer from flower to flower to fertilize the plant. Plants rely on pollinators to grow and produce offspring. Without pollination, many plants would die off and would not be around the next growing season. Pollination is the sole reason the U.S. has as many fruits, vegetables, and nuts that it does. The western honey bee is one of the many important pollinators that have become a huge part of North American agriculture, but they might not be necessary.
(2007) upwards of 75% of the leading crops grown worldwide are dependent on or benefit from animal pollination, where as wind and self pollination is responsible of only 24% of pollination. Klatt et al. (2014) studied the affects of bee pollination and strawberry fruit yield the study showed that bee pollination not only improved fruit quality and quantity but also market value compared with wind and self pollination. The fruits pollinated by bees were heavier, had less malformations and reached are high commercial standard. The colour and texture was more vibrant and firmer with sugar to acid ratios reduced enabling a long shelf life to be obtained and over all fruit loss to be reduced by 11% (Klatt et al., 2014) These results showed that pollination by bees increased the commercial value per fruit by 38.6% compared with wind pollination and by 54.3% compared to self
If science cannot cure Colony Collapse Disorder we many have to look at other methods of pollination. Ants Bats, Beetles and Birds also contribute to the pollination of crops, but without bees there are not enough animals to pollinate. A project at Harvard University is looking at artificially intelligent bees; these robots could pollinate crops, assist militaries and help in search and rescue missions across the globe.
Bees have existed for about 100 million years, and they have played an important role in the pollination of plants. A long time ago, pollination was crucial to the balance of the food chain. Without it there would have been no food for the herbivores and they would have become extinct; so no food for the meat eaters. They have been doing their job for millions of years, but recently scientists have observed problems within the colonies which could have negative effects with in our ecosystem.
Bees are involved in all food because they keep the plants alive which keeps the animals alive.
A bee is an insect that lives in every part of the world except the North and South Poles. Bees are one of the most useful of all insects. There are 20,000 species of bees in the world (154, B: Bees). Bees get their food from flowers through pollen and nectar. They collect tiny grains of pollen and nectar from flower blossoms. Sticky nectar gets attached to the tiny hairs that cover their bodies and is distributed when bees travel from flower collecting nectar (201, B: Bees). Bees make their honey from nectar and use both honey and pollen as food. When bees are collecting nectar for food, they spread pollen from flower to flower. The process of pollination allows plants to reproduce as well as feeds the bees. Bees have become completely dependent on flowers for food. Flowers, in turn, rely heavily on bees to
Why we need the bees; The bees pollinate most the plants to produce fruits, seeds, and nuts. Like other bees, rusty patched bumblebees important crops for us to eat, such as tomatoes, cranberries and peppers.
Bees aren 't the only insect pollinators in the world, but they are by far the most widespread ones. Despite this, non-bee insect pollinators have a contributing factor to the success of pollination that the bees themselves don 't. There have been studies on the success of the pollination and 'seeding ' of flowers and plants. Bees have a fairly average success rate, focusing more on spreading the pollination farther afield than the success of the 'seeding '. Non-bee insects tend to stay in a small ranged area that allows them to visit the same flowers more often, thus increasing the success of their visits.