Why Bees Are Important For The Ecosystem?
Did you know there are over 20,000 bees all over the world? Bees help strengthen our ecosystems and generate natural resources by helping plants reproduce. Many people may not know but bees are vital to not just humans but other animals and if they went extinct our world would change dramatically. In this essay I will be discussing why bees are so important for the ecosystem. They pollinate plants, help create habitats, and help biodiversity.
To begin with, bees pollinate plants. What is pollination? When a pollen grain moves from the anther of a flower to the stigma, pollination happens. This is the first step in a process that produces seeds, fruits, and the next generation of plants. Why is pollination important?
According to pollinator.org Somewhere between 75% and 95% of all flowering plants on the earth need help with pollination. Pollinators provide pollination services to over 180,000 different plant species and more than 1200 crops. That means that 1 out of every three bites of food you eat is there because of pollinators.
Honeybees alone are responsible for between 1.2 and 5.4 billion dollars in agricultural productivity in the United States. In addition to the food that we eat, pollinators support healthy ecosystems that clean the air, stabilize soils, protect from severe weather, and support other wildlife.
In addition to pollination, bees help create habitats. Bees help build homes for millions of other insects and animals. According to premier tech Their role as pollinators is vital in the growth of tropical forests, savannah woodlands, and temperate deciduous forests. Many tree species, like willows and poplars, could not grow without pollinators like bees. They help to preserve and spread our natural forests. If bees disappeared, the animals that depend on these plants for survival would vanish as well.
Lastly, Bees help biodiversity. What is biodiversity? Biodiversity is the variety and variability of life on Earth. Biodiversity is typically a measure of variation at the genetic, species, and ecosystem level.
Without bee’s biodiversity would not be the best. According to fao.org to be able to adapt to environmental changes there need to be genetically different plants. In that way there will always be some plants, which are better adapted than others because of special genetic constitutions. The only way to constantly mix the genes for the plants is by cross-pollination, where pollen from one plant is transported by bees to another so that the offspring become genetically different
In that way, there is a greater chance for at least some of the offspring to survive in the competition of life. In this we find the bees as one of the most important factors.
In conclusion, bees are important for the ecosystem. They pollinate plants, help create habitats, and help biodiversity. Bees support healthy ecosystems that clean the air, help build homes for millions of other insects and animals and preserve and spread our natural forests. I talked about a few reasons as to why bees are important knowing there are plenty more. Why do you think they are so important?
Author: Samantha Charles
Valencia College
Citation
- Cullen, M., Mondor, A., & Reeves, O. (2020). 5 Ways Bees are Important to the Environment. http://www.pthomeandgarden.com/5-ways-bees-are-important-to-the-environment
- Bradbear, N. (2009). BEES AND THEIR ROLE IN FOREST LIVELIHOODS. http://www.fao.org/3/i0842e/i0842e00
- Adams, L. D. (2018). About Pollinators. https://www.pollinator.org/pollinators?gclid=Cj0KCQjwlvT8BRDeARIsAACRFiUNBiEw35-M952AM7FXEUxY7E_KPyGGPxsfDcZXleq0aw3srFB-y3EaAhU6EALw_wcB
