Why Bees Are Important For The Ecosystem?
A lot of people misunderstand the effect of a bee and its impact in our world. It is commonly known that bees help pollinate flowers in order make them reproduce. But bees have a way more complex and important whole in the world than just pollinating flowers.
What most people don’t know is that bees are way more involved in our lives than we think they are. Many people don’t give much importance to bees because they don’t see what is really behind all that food production and market growth. According to plenty of studies, people have started to know more about the bees and its role in the world. But why are bees so important? Why can’t we live without them? What is it that makes the bees essential to our daily basis and also for our society to function properly?
As said before, bees are not all about honey and the pollinating of flowers. Bees are extremely important and yet essential to food production everywhere. A study shows that bees are part of one in every three meals you have. Wild bees and bees cultivated by humans are crucial when it comes to pollinating plants that produce huge amounts of food.
The global value of insect pollination is estimated at a hundred and fifty-three billion Euros every year. And if bees die out, or even the number of bees is diminished, a huge impact in society economy would occur, affecting stocks and means of production. Bees for example are extreme important and crucial for the pollination of tomatoes, without the bees, tomatoes would have to be pollinated by hand, generating a lot more work, and it would become more expensive as it goes. Tomato growing could become unproductive, and no tomato means no pizza, and a world without pizza is a sad and lonely place indeed.
Bees are also of extreme importance to contribute with biodiversity. Animals would consume honey out of honeycombs, and bee eaters would consume the bees itself. A lot of creatures prey on or parasite upon the bees. Another thing to take to consideration is that a lot of plants and wildflowers depend on bees for pollination, without the bees, there would be a massive and drastic consequences to both plants and the animals that depend on them.
An outnumber of bees could result in thousands of plants to die out, and possibly leading to millions of people starving after that. Some of those plants that generates food are used to feed livestock and thus necessary to produce milk and meat. That is how important and dependable on bees we humans are.
Besides, bees are watchdogs for environmental changes and ecosystem services. Many species of bees have extremely precise habitat requirements, if a certain habitat undergoes a change, the bees population living on that place will respond quickly. However, some plants that are pollinated by bees are considered to be big and strong, as they are essentially important to soak up carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.
And with the human species relying more in industries nowadays, we do need as many species of plants as possible to sequestrate offset human-caused emissions. Another factor is that the roots of those plants bind the soil together, preventing erosion and slow the seepage of water though the ground, and help to minimize floods.
As said before, a lot of people does not give much importance to the contribution of bees and others don’t even know its importance. At present, no one has calculated the value of all these services because they are currently provided for free. But it is like a super expensive shop, just because there is no price tag, doesn’t mean something isn’t extremely valuable. And for the lack of importance we give to the bees, and probably because of the environmental impacts caused by us humans, bee populations have started to decrease significantly. It is up to us to take better care of our surroundings, and preserve the beautiful nature we have, in order to guarantee our own survival.
