In order to attract pollinators, plants have come up with various methods. Of course, the most effective and direct way of is to give them some "sweetness" and try . When the "pollinator" visits the flowers to absorb nectar, the pollen in the flowers will take the "hurry" and follow the "pollinator" to the appropriate fertile soil.
In fact, except for a few plants that can self-pollinate, most flowering plants need "external assistance" to produce fruits through pollen transmission and thus breed offspring. If the pollination link is missing, countless flowering plants will become "islands" in the sea of flowers , and many interrelated species and functions in their ecosystem will be lost.
bees is the most important group among pollinators. Most of the more than 20,000 bees (Hymopterae) around the world are effective pollinators. They form the main body of pollinators with moths, flies, wasp , beetle and butterflies, and serve about 70,000 flowering plants around the world. In addition, vertebrates, including tree squirrels, lemurs, and honey bears, can occasionally pollinate to a certain extent when enjoying desserts after meals, but most of them are occasionally done.
How important is pollination to agriculture
In agricultural ecosystem , pollinators are extremely important for orchards, horticulture and forage production, as well as seed production of many root and fiber crops, because seed yields are directly related to crop yields. Pollinators such as bees, birds and bats can increase the yield of 87 major food crops around the world and many plant-derived drugs in the world's pharmaceutical industry .
Although the reproduction of staple food crops such as rice, wheat and potatoes can be independent of medium pollination, however, for most fruits and vegetables that are increasingly important in global agriculture, biological vector pollination is essential, such as the common crops of strawberry , citrus, apples, sweet potatoes, etc. in our lives. yield will decrease by up to 90% without pollination.
In addition, those crops that rely on pollination are high-value . According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, the average value per ton is 761 euros (nearly 5,000 yuan), while the value of crops that do not rely on pollination is only 151 euros per ton (about 1,048 yuan).
Therefore, people are increasingly aware of the importance of pollination to agriculture. In the past, pollination was carried out naturally and people did not intervene too much. Now, people have begun to domesticate "natural pollinators", the most typical one is bees. More and more domesticated bees are invested in the pollination army. However, for many crops, bees are not necessarily the best pollinator, and the "pollination skills" of artificially domesticated bees are not as good as those of wild populations. For example, local wild bees that pollinate high cluster blueberries can release more pollen by vibrating anthers, while domesticated bees cannot do it, so they cannot spread more pollen, resulting in the unsatisfactory crop yield.
The left side of bees are not pollinated; the right side of bees is open to pollinate bees
, so now the use of wild pollinators is reappearing to help pollinate, but when people come back to their senses, the number of pollinating organisms around the world is decreasing significantly.
Plants cannot lose pollinator just like the West cannot lose Jerusalem
In recent years, the decline of wild bee populations has indirectly reflected the decrease in pollinator organisms. There are many reasons behind it, but the main reasons are from human activities. For example, the development of intensive agriculture has led to an increasingly homogeneous natural landscape, which has gradually disappeared from the habitats on which many pollinators rely for survival. Pollinators need various resources in their environment, which can allow them to obtain food, build nests and reproductive offspring. Once these conditions are destroyed or missing, they will make it difficult for pollinators to maintain their lives locally and they can only choose to migrate or face extinction.
There are also inappropriate use of pesticides and other agricultural chemicals (such as herbicides) that can also have a negative impact on some pollinators.
And more notably, air pollution may be one of the biggest potential threats to pollinator biodiversity . According to a research article published in the journal Environmental Pollution earlier this year, pollutants in the air will mix into the fragrance of flowers and change the smell of flowers, making them difficult to detect by pollinators.
research data shows that pollinators' "visit rate" of plants in polluted air has been reduced by 62 to 70%. In this way, a large number of pollinating insects, including bees, are more difficult to find food (nectar and pollen), while plants that need to be pollinated wait until the flowers have faded and they have not waited for the person they want. This wave is a "lose".
Since ancient times, plants and pollinators have cooperated closely. When pollinators decrease, for the continuation of their own species, plants will compete for pollination resources. According to the ecology theory, this increasingly fierce competition may force plants to establish their own unique ecological niche, thereby enriching the diversity of plants.
However, ideals are beautiful, reality is skinny. Competition for pollinator organisms will instead interfere with the interaction between different plant species, resulting in a decrease in coexisting species.
Reference:
https://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/en/headlines/society/20191129STO67758/what-s-behind-the-decline-in-bees-and-other-pollinators-infographictml5
https://doi.org/10.1603/EN1331 4
https://www.fao.org/3/be104c/be104c.pdf
https://phys.org/news/20 18-07-pollinator-biodiesity.html
https://www.cas.cn/kj/202208/t20220808_4844066.shtml
