Bumblebees Significant Role in Plant Evolution, Creating More Fragrant Flowers Than Hoverflies; Cheerios' Campaign in Saving Bees
On recent experiments conducted by Prof. Schiestl and Gervasi, they determined what ways and insects differed greatly in pollinating the plant. The two use field mustard seed and allowed one group of plants to be pollinated by bumblebees for nine generations, secondly is by hoverflies and the third is by hands.
The result by the plants being pollinated by Hoverflies was relatively smaller plus its flower was less fragrant. The report also suggests that the flies' was more self-pollinated. But the result as expected that the plants pollinated by bumblebees had more fragrant flowers and were larger.
Plants pollinated by bumblebees resulted into a much livelier flower which has more UV color component. According to Prof. Schiestl, the mechanism of an evolutionary change differs from pollinators in accordance with their preferences. The preferentially cross-pollinate specific plant's individuals like a plant breeder will use individuals with favorable properties.
Prof. Schiestl also stated that the flies' that has lower pollination efficiency will result in an increase of self-pollination. The plants naturally help themselves if the pollinators only transfer minimal pollen. The team was surprise after learning the fact that the plants change significantly after nine generations, Sci News has reported.
The traditional evolution is supposed to be a slow process as per Prof. Schiestl. He further stated that a change in the composition of the pollinator like the bumblebees in natural habitats can also trigger a rapid evolutionary transformation in plants.
According to some reports, the fact is interesting as bumblebees as a certain pollinator vastly decimated by the use of pesticides and depletion of the landscape in the previous decades. It would be conceivable for plants to rely on flies as pollinator which could give a result into much weaker flower fragrances and more self-pollination, according to Prof. Schiestl.
In the recent study, it pointed out that in the long term, if bumblebees continue to dissimilate, this could affect plant population's genetic variability and is more susceptible to disease. Meanwhile, Cheerios have a campaign in saving more bees, due to a massive decrease of buzz at an alarming rate, Fox8 has reported.
On March 14, Cheerios posted on its official twitter account that they will be giving free wildflower seed packets. To help increase the population of bees, the study of will be published in the journal Nature Communications this week.
Subscribe to Latin Post!
Sign up for our free newsletter for the Latest coverage!
* This is a contributed article and this content does not necessarily represent the views of latinpost.com