More than was thought Plant meadows need a great diversity of bees species needed to pollinate them

The process of pollination of plants helps to maintain biodiversity, and this process also ensures the preservation of rare species of plants, and thus this function plays a major role in the sustainability of ecosystems.

Previous research on pollinators such as bees has been based on specific types of plants, often crops. Some of these studies have treated entire plant communities as if they were a single plant entity.

The need for diversity

Hence, these studies have excessively indicated that only 2% of the most common bee species are responsible for providing 80% of the crop pollination rate. Thus, these studies have concluded that the pollination process depends on a few common bee species. But none questioned how many pollinators are needed to pollinate all the plant species found in a diverse meadow of plants.

Recently, a research study published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B on April 13 questioned whether or not the number of bee species needed for pollination varies with plant species. 

                                 

To find an answer to this question, researchers surveyed 11 botanical patches in New Jersey, in the United States, over the course of one year. The team involved in the study noted that more than 180 species of bees have visited more than 130 different plant species more than 22,000 times this year.

According to the press release published by the University of Maryland, commenting on the study conducted by one of its researchers in cooperation with scientists from Rutgers University, the flowers of green meadows need large groups of bees to pollinate them. This means that an increase in the number of plant species requires an increase in the types of bees needed to pollinate these plants.

Rare species contribute to the pollination process

A report published by Phys.org indicated that the types of bees needed to pollinate these flowering meadows are much more than the types known to most people, which were limited to honeybees and bumblebees.

The study reported that there are types of less common bees that pollinate certain plants that were not visited by any of the most common types of bees. "The less common bee species were actually more important to ecosystem health than previously thought," explained Michael Roswell, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Maryland and co-author of the study.

Their results showed that meadow communities with plant diversity required a 2.5- to 7.5-fold increase in the species of bees needed for pollination. The researchers also indicated that rare bee species contributed about 25% of the pollinators responsible for the pollination process. The study also reported that this percentage can be increased in plant meadows with greater plant diversity.

Thus, these results indicate the importance of rare species in maintaining ecosystems. This is of course critical and prompts the need to do more to conserve rare species and those most vulnerable to extinction due to climate change, pollution and other factors.

Source : Phys.org + Websites