Explain the importance of insect pollination for plant reproduction and human food security, and discuss the consequences of pollinator decline
Bite an apple, eat a handful of almonds, eat a slice of toast. In the chart model, almonds and apples lose most yield without insects, while wheat can still set seed. A huge share of the fruit, nuts, and vegetables you eat began with a bee, a hoverfly, or a moth pushing into a flower and flying off dusted with pollen. When less of such a food grows, shops often charge more for it.
Almond trees in California flower for only a few weeks each spring. There aren't enough wild bees nearby to visit every blossom, so growers truck in millions of honeybee hives just for that short window. Without those bees, most blossoms would never become almonds.
To work out which foods might get scarce first as pollinators decline, ask one question of each plant: could it make its fruit or seed without an insect visit? To test a new plant, cover some flowers to keep insects out, leave others open, keep all else the same, then compare seed set. If covered flowers set far less seed, that food is at risk. This test works on a plant nobody has studied yet.
A flower is an advertisement. Insect flowers shout: bright colour, strong scent, a broad petal that works as a landing pad, and heavy sticky pollen that clings to whatever lands. Wind flowers do not advertise. They are small, dull and scentless, and they release clouds of light dry pollen that drift off on the breeze. Read the signals and you can call a plant's pollinator.
Many fruits, nuts, and vegetables only form after an insect carries pollen to their flowers, so fewer bees can mean less of that food on the shelf.
Breakfast is on the table: toast, an apple, a handful of almonds. In the chart model, almonds and apples depend heavily on insects, while wheat can still set seed without insects.
Which of these three foods depends on insect pollination the most?
Slide the pollinators away and watch which breakfast disappears first.
Jobs that lean on this skill. Follow one to see everything it is built on.
24 questions wait behind this lesson, each with its answer explained. Every answer feeds the sky: stars light as they are learned, and dim when it is time to come back.