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Importance of biodiversity in daily life
Importance of biodiversity in human life essay
Importance of biodiversity in human life essay
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A recent survey has revealed that only a small percentage of the population of the world understands the process of Pollination or the diversity of beneficial animals involved in the process. For most humans, the world pollen means allergies and bees mean STING. Well for their knowledge, every one out of the three bites you eat, you should be thankful to the very pests you shoo away or kill-the bee, the bat, insects and animals otherwise known as pollinators.
Pollination is a natural process which involves the transfer of pollen grains from the anthers (male part of a flower) to the Stigma (female part).There are two types of Pollination depending on their method by which they were pollinated. They are self-Pollination and cross-Pollination. Self-Pollination is within the same plant, whether biotic or abiotic. Cross-Pollination is between different plants of same species. Unlike Self-Pollination, Cross-Pollination alters genes producing healthier individuals.
Pollinators are the biotic agents which transfer the pollen from anthers to stigma of plants of same species to achieve fertilisation. The study of Pollinators is Ant ecology.
The most common and recognised type of pollinators are Bees. They are simply adapted to it. They carry electrostatic charge which helps in pollination. In bees as well Honey bees
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It has also brought about fear in the world. The decline of pollinators adversely affects various aspects of the economy of the world such as biodiversity. The potential of the decline of pollinators is very serious. Plants as we all know form the crux of our existence and the existence of the ecosystem. The disruption in pollination caused by the decline of pollinators will lead to the rapid decline in certain plant species which only cross pollinate. Thus, knocking – on its effects to the animals and birds depending on them and thereby resulting in the complete destruction of
Even our native plants that all life relies on, could now be at risk. To understand the possible issues we are facing; firstly, we must understand how plants work. Angiosperm is the type of plant most used in agricultural fields. A BBC video explains that angiosperms are the only organism that can capture pure-energy from the sun, and pump it out as energy-giving nectar, protein-enriched pollen and color-coded fruit into the food chain. Also, they, amazingly, can transpire water into our atmosphere, which aids in balancing of our global climate (“The Power of Flowers: How to Grow a Planet”). Also, Jonathan Drori, a speaker on TedTalks, shares the unique relationship that insects and plants have. Angiosperms have slowly adapted, taking thousands of years of DNA evolution, to attract specific insects to do a specific, pollination job in a ultraviolet world. Some of these modifications range in the transformation of temperature which are recorded as high as 115 degree Fahrenheit, colors that are invisible to us containing an encoded landing strips to guide it 's visitor, textures for functionality, smell/odor that lure the needed species, and several behaviors of mimicry that would capture any student 's interest. Plants are bizarre, to say the least. Reproduction and survival are the plants ' sole purpose in life, which is done by genetic adaptation to the environment. (“The Beautiful Tricks of Flowers”). We are only scratching the surface on how angiosperm plants work, and tampering with their genetics would be unwise at this point in
middle of paper ... ... The governments of the affected countries must set aside funds that will help in carrying out research to establish the causes of CCD. Countries not affected by this phenomenon must also take all the necessary precautions to prevent their stock of bees from declining in numbers. If necessary steps are not taken as early as now, then many nations risk losing millions of plants due to lack of pollination and eventually we could be a famine-stricken world.
Think for a moment of a world without bees; a world without our buzzing friend. They might look like they barely do much to help our ecosystem. However, bees are a vital part of our agriculture and this makes it vital that we keep them around. The bee population decline in recent years is troubling for both us and our little friends. As their friends, we must do all we can in order to ensure their survival which in turn will ensure our own.
To most, the honeybee can be an annoying insect that has a powerful sting. Yet, the honeybee is so much more than just another insect. The honeybee is arguably the most vital component in the development of our food crops. With roughly 90 percent of our food crops dependent on the pollination of our honeybees, our food system, agricultural development, and diet rest on the work and well being of these buzzing insects. Unfortunately, since 2006 there has been a major decline in the population of honeybees, and has gotten progressively worse because of colony collapse disorder. The first reported increase of CCD was documented in November 2006 in Florida. By February 2007, several states began reporting major losses associated with CCD, ranging from 30% to 90%. A little over a half decade later in 2012 the attention paid towards CCD has grown substantially with more research being done as CCD continues to get worse. The main culprit for CCD, as research has suggested, is the use of pesticides on our food crops. With major corporations such as Bayer making millions and millions of dollars in profit each year in the distribution of pesticides, it is no wonder that nothing is being done to stop this practice despite evidence linking the use of pesticides and the drastic deterioration of the health of honeybees. With the continuation of the use of deadly pesticides and the vital role bees play in the pollination and development of our food crops, both the environment and our economy will be effected directly and face the potential for catastrophic results.
Different species differ widely in their duties and may be carnivorous, herbivorous, or omnivorous. Members of some species eat honeydew from plants infested with aphids and certain other insects; others called dairying ants, feed and protect the aphids ad “milk” them by stroking. Harvester ants eat and store seeds; these sometimes spout around the nest, leading to the erroneous belief that these ants cultivate food.
Our livestock depend on bee-pollinated plants like grain. Poorly pollinated plants produce fewer fruits and seeds, leading to higher prices (New Agriculturist, n.d.). Some crops are entirely dependent on pollinators such as almonds and others are 90 percent dependent on blueberries and cherries (ABF, 2015). Bees give us honey and we use this honey in food, shampoo, and moisturizers (Mercola, 2015). Bees pollinate 70 out of our 100 major crops; that includes apples, cucumbers, pumpkins, and many more.
Others include birds, butterflies, and the wind; however, honey bees, by far, are the best at pollinating plants. Collecting pollen is their whole life’s purpose, according to Michigan State University’s article, “Native Plants and Ecosystem Services”. Over one hundred forty three million acres of plants in America are sprayed with a bee-killing insecticide that has been banned in Europe by the European Food Safety Authority (Sarich). Promote ecological farming, and ban all bee-harming pesticides.
Bees are an insect well known to all mainly due to their sweet tasting honey and ferocious sting, but what most people don’t realise is the importance of these tiny creatures to the ecosystem. Honey Bees (scientific name Apis) live in hives and there are three different levels of bee here, all with different jobs. Firstly, there’s the workers, these are female bees that are not sexually developed and have to do all the hives hard work such as collecting food, cleaning, feeding and taking care of the larvae and male bees. Next there is the Queen who really lives up to her title, the queen bee lives a life of relative luxury and her only job is to lay the eggs. The last are the drones, the male bees. The drone bee makes up a small amount of the hives population and their sole purpose is procreation. Bees have a very interesting way of mating, the queen bee will fly 200-300 feet into the air where she will encounter and mate with several drone bees, very few drone bees actually get to mate with the queen bee, but it’s not exactly lucky for the few that do as as soon as they mate, they d...
Flowering plants have two main reproductive parts; the male part is called the stamen and produces pollen, while the female part is called the pistil. For pollination to occur, the pollen must be transferred from the stamen to the pistil. This transfer can occasionally be caused by wind, but it is most often facilitated by animals called pollinators. Pollinators do not intentionally set out to fertilize flowers; rather, they unintentionally spread pollen while roaming from plant to plant in search of food. There are many different species – including birds, butterflies, and bats – that act as pollinators, and many of these species are also suffering declines in population. However, honeybees are the most pr...
Pollinators are very important to the environment because many plant species rely on reproduction to be carried out by pollination1. Bees are dependent on plants for pollen and nectar and in return, are the most common pollinator of plant species and around 90 percent of plants require pollination by an animal7. Bees are used in farming, both for pollinating crops and for producing honey, and the estimated value of bees to the United Kingdom is £400 million per year9. Plants are the primary producers in many food webs and, as so many are dependent on pollination in order to reproduce, a decline in pollinators would have a detrimental effect on whole ecosystems. Therefore, the declining numbers of pollinators, particularly bees, are a cause of concern because of the environmental knock-on effects.
Insect pollination as we all know, is the process that enables reproduction and fertilization by the transfer of pollen performed by insects. Insects are some of the oldest pollinators of plants. Pollinating insects date back to 140 million years ago. Since then, due to how effective insect pollinators are, these flowering plants have become the major group of terrestrial vascular plants. Flowering plants, also known as angiosperms, have imperative roles within our ecosystems, both natural and agricultural. For instance, insects provide food, fiber and shelter for wildlife and humankind alike (2007). It is commonly know that in humans, high levels of fruit and vegetable consumption are associated with decreased risk of chronic disease (Calderone 2012). Aside from these important roles, plants have also been considered as a viable option for fuel sources (Calderone 2012). There are around 300,00 species of flowering plants in the world and without pollination, the reproductive process would be very difficult since pollination causes the production of seeds (Calderone 2012). Of the 300,000 plant species worldwide, a little over 3,000 of these plants have been used as a source of food. Close to 300 of these species are grown around the world today and only 12 of these plants make up about 90 percent of the food sources in our world. These 12 include the grains...
Over the past decade bee populations have been dropping drastically. A 40% loss of honeybees happened in the U.S. and U.K. lose 45% of its commercial honeybee since 2010. This is a phenomenon known as Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) in which worker bees from a beehive abruptly disappear in a short time. These data are definitely not meaningless since bees are a crucial part of the reproductive cycle of many foods. The impact bees have on the agriculture and the environment is far more crucial than we may think. Crops rely on bees to assist their reproduction and bring them life. Bees are renowned in facilitating pollination for most plant life, including over 100 different vegetable and fruit crops. Without bees, there would be a huge decrease in pollination, which later result in reduce in plant growth and food supplies. On the other hand, without the pollination progressed with the assistance from bees, the types of flowers According to Dr. Albert Einstein, “If the bee disappears from the surface of the earth, man would have no more than four years to live. No more bees, no more pollination…no more men”. That’s why bees’ extinction affects people more than we ever think, and could even forebode the doom day of human race.
Pollination, the transfer of pollen from one flower to another, is a keystone process in both human-managed and natural terrestrial ecosystems. Pollination is one of the most important mechanisms in the maintenance and promotion of biodiversity and, in general, life on Earth. It is an ecosystem process that has evolved over millions of years to benefit both flowering plants and pollinators. Pollination is critical for food production and human livelihood and directly links wild ecosystem with agricultural production system. It plays an important role both in our survival and the existence of nearly all ecosystems on earth. Many ecosystems, including many agro-ecosystems, depend on pollinator diversity
Biodiversity loss can lead to extinction, and hurt human life. It is our responsibility to take care of the environment. We bring in machines that harm the environment and destroy animal life. We need to limit ourselves on how much land and resources we consume. There are major issues that are causing species to become extinct and hurt our way of life and other animals do to the change in food chain.
Without pollination, the human race, as well as it’s terrestrial ecosystems would cease to exist. Over 80% of the world’s flowering plants require the aid of a pollinator in order to continue their existence (U.S. Forest Service). Pollination is the process of transporting pollen grains from the male anther of a plant to the female stigma (“What is Pollination”). Through this process, plants are able to create a seed, this seed contains genetic information for production of new plant.