By Liz Stahl
Pollinators play a critical role in food production. According to the USDA Farmers.gov website, more than 80 percent of the world’s flowering plants need a pollinator to reproduce. Since most of our food comes from flowering plants, we need pollinators too. Pollinators are also a key part of the food web, and they play a role in contributing to soil health and water quality by helping foster robust plant communities. It is estimated they provide ecological services valued at $200 billion each year.
Dramatic drops in bee populations and other pollinator species across North America have raised alarms. On the February 4 Strategic Farming: Let’s Talk Crops program, Dan Cariveau, Associate Professor with the University of Minnesota Bee Lab, along with moderator Claire LaCanne, UMN Extension educator in crops, discussed pollinators and how we can promote them on an agricultural landscape.
Bees have been buzzing around for a long time
Dr. Cariveau discussed that although bees have been found in the fossil record dating back 65 to 75 million years ago, scientists have determined the first DNA from bees likely dates back to around 123 million years ago. Around this time flowers started evolving too. Today, flowers and bees are closely linked, with bees being a critical pollinator of flowers.
At least 20,000 species of bees have been identified across the world. When talking about bees, many people think of the honey bee, but they are just one bee species. MN alone has about 525 species of bees, ranging from tiny species you can just see with the naked eye to very large bumblebee species (Portman et. al.)
Source : umn.edu