The underappreciated benefits of wild bees
Image of bee on purple flower. Photo credit: Ron Whitaker / Unsplash via Free Think
September 14, 2023
More than 80 percent of flowering plants depend on insect pollinators to reproduce. When pollinators visit flowers — which act as the plants’ reproductive organs — to eat their nutritious pollen and nectar, the insects inadvertently transport the pollen between plants, which fertilizes the blooms, leading to fruit and seed formation.
But all of the benefits provided by native bees may be at risk, says Claire Kremen, a conservation biologist at the University of British Columbia. In an assessment of nearly half of all bumblebee species, scientists estimated that a third of those studied were in decline.
Read the full article at Free Think