---
title: "Pollination & Pollinator Decline"
description: "Explain the importance of insect pollination for plant reproduction and human food security, and discuss the consequences of pollinator decline"
canonical: https://lightmysky.com/learn/science/pollination-and-pollinator-decline-mt_wWpa5fFDZP
source: https://lightmysky.com/learn/science/pollination-and-pollinator-decline-mt_wWpa5fFDZP.md
retrieved: 2026-10-19
---

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# Pollination & Pollinator Decline

Explain the importance of insect pollination for plant reproduction and human food security, and discuss the consequences of pollinator decline

Subject: Science · Area: Ecosystems & Habitats · Ages 11 to 12
Page: https://lightmysky.com/learn/science/pollination-and-pollinator-decline-mt_wWpa5fFDZP

## Ready when they can

- Explains why many food crops depend on insect pollination to produce fruit and seeds
- Names examples of crops that benefit from insect pollination (e.g. apples, almonds, oilseed rape)
- Discusses the potential impact of bee population decline on food production
- Connects to plant reproduction — flowers are adapted to attract specific pollinators

## Lesson: Pollination and the food on your plate

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.

*(drawing: In the chart model, almonds and apples lose most yield without bee visits. Wheat mostly pollinates itself, with some wind help between plants, so it can set seed without insects. Rice mostly pollinates itself, so it sets seed without insects too. Numbers are rounded examples for these varieties. Other varieties can differ.)*

**Example.** 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.

**Recap.** 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.

## Practice

24 questions on this page, each with its working shown.

## Needs first

- [Threats to insects and conservation](https://lightmysky.com/learn/science/threats-to-insects-and-conservation-mt__EL7DHjf5R)
- [Food Webs & Interdependence](https://lightmysky.com/learn/science/food-webs-and-interdependence-mt_URTJbS3hhs)
- [Pollination & Seed Dispersal](https://lightmysky.com/learn/science/pollination-and-seed-dispersal-mt_WNBHZ1d94L)

## Opens up

- [Land Plants: Vascular Tissue and a Life Cycle That Alternates](https://lightmysky.com/learn/science/land-plants-vascular-tissue-and-a-life-cycle-that-alternates-mt_DFtQ2mCZSm)