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Because we can't live without them!
Photo credit: Rick French
Pollinators like honeybees, butterflies, birds, bats and other animals are hard at work pollinating crops like apples, almonds, oranges, avocados, peaches, pears, plums, cherries, alfalfa, blueberries, vanilla, cranberries, tomatoes, kiwi, figs, coffee, strawberries, blackberries, raspberries, lemons, limes, eggplants, kumquats, nectarines, bananas, strawberries, melon, peaches, and coffee.
Three-fourths of the world’s flowering plants and about 35 percent of the world’s food crops depend on animal pollinators to reproduce. Native bees help increase crop yields. Some scientists estimate that one out of every three bites of food we eat exists because of animal pollinators like bees, butterflies and moths, birds and bats, and beetles and other insects.
Pollinators visit flowers in their search for food - nectar. They may accidentally brush against the flower’s reproductive parts and pick up pollen which they carry from flower to flower. The plants use the pollen to produce a fruit or seed. Many plants cannot reproduce without pollen carried to them by foraging pollinators.
You may have heard that bees are disappearing and bats are dying. These and other animal pollinators face many challenges in the modern world. Habitat loss, disease, parasites, and environmental contaminants have all contributed to the decline of many species of pollinators. Pollinators that can’t find the right quantity or quality of food (nectar and pollen from blooming plants within flight range) don’t survive. Right now, there simply aren’t enough pollinator friendly plantings to support them.
That's why Florida has joined the Great Southeast Pollinator Census, with Marion County leading the way.
Please visit the Master Gardeners' Pollinator Census Booths at Spring Festival - one is located outside near the Butterfly Encounter; the second one is located inside the auditorium at the KidZone. And follow us on Facebook to learn more about this project.
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