About 175 000 plant species – half of all flowering plants – mostly or completely rely on animal pollinators to make seeds and so to reproduce.
About 175 000 plant species – half of all flowering plants – mostly or completely rely on animal pollinators to make seeds and so to reproduce. Declines in pollinators could therefore cause major disruptions in natural ecosystems, including loss of biodiversity.
This is the finding from a paper, “Widespread vulnerability of plant seed production to pollinator declines", published in the journal Science Advances on 13 October 2021.
Dr James Rodger, a postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Mathematical Sciences at Stellenbosch University (SU) and lead author, says this is the first study to provide a global estimate of the importance of pollinators for plants in natural ecosystems.
The study, involving 21 scientists affiliated with 23 institutions from five continents, was led by Dr James Rodger and Prof Allan Ellis from Stellenbosch University (SU). It is a product of the Synthesis Centre for Biodiversity Sciences (sDiv) in the German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research.
Read more at: Stellenbosch University
Photo Credit: martin_hetto via Pixabay
