Impacts on Plants & Pollen

As we learned in Module 7: Plants & Pollen, pollination is a crucial process for humans. Our current agricultural system in the U.S. is hugely dependent on our ability to manipulate insect pollination. While many people associate honeybees with crop pollination, the human relationship with pollinators is complex. By one estimate, domesticated honeybees pollinate $14 […]

General Pollination Syndromes

Pollination is a mutualism, or an interaction between two species that is mutually beneficial. The mutualism can be either diffuse, among lots of plant species and lots of pollinator species, or between more specific pairs of species. The floral characteristics of many species of plants allow them to attract general classes of pollinators, rather than […]