Throughout nature you’ll find many instances of organisms depending upon each other for their survival– one of the cleverest examples of this is the relationship between bees and flowers, a relationship which we humans benefit greatly from. I’m Jim Metzner, and this is the Pulse of the Planet, presented by the American Museum of Natural History.
“If there were no bees in the world this would greatly affect the pollination of plants and when I say plants, I mean both plants in the wild and also agricultural plants.”
Jerry Rozen is curator at the American Museum of Natural History.
“In the United States, the production of crops each year that require bee pollination amounts to somewhere between ten and twenty billion dollars a year. If there were no bees, then we would be hard pressed to produce the crops that we need to survive.”
And bees look to the pollen in flowers as their sole source of protein, not to mention the nectar that some bees use to produce honey. In fact, bees and flowers are so interdependent that scientists can date the origins of the first bees with that of the first flowers; bees and flowers must have evolved simultaneously, because they couldn’t have existed without each other. Not that your average bee is so concerned with the details.
“It’s only by accident that the pollen is transferred. The pollen that the bee collects she is intending that for her offspring. But there’s a certain amount of pollen that gets on the rest of her body, clinging to her hairs and this is the pollen that affects pollination. Now there are some flowers that actually have ways of tricking the bee into coming and then covering that bee with a great puff of pollen, thereby making it more certain that the puff of pollen will be transferred to the next flower and fertilize the next flower.
Pulse of the Planet is presented by the American Museum of Natural History. Additional funding for this series has been provided by the National Science Foundation. I’m Jim Metzner.