When spring rolls around, it's fun to see all the new plants and flowers bloom. For this to happen, a process called pollination has to take place. Without pollination, there wouldn't be any new plants at all. Can you imagine a world without flowers, fruit, or vegetables? It'd be a very colorless place! Happily, pollination ensures that there will be plenty of new plants to enjoy in the future.
What is Pollination?
Pollination is the process through which pollen - a powder that contains plant sperm cells - is transferred to the pistil of a flower in order to produce a seed. A flower's pistil contains the female reproductive parts like the stigma, style, and ovary. Just like in human and animal reproduction, the special cells in the pollen and in the ovary combine to produce a brand-new plant seed. Plants have many clever ways of transferring their pollen, but in an emergency situation where no pollinators are present, some plants are able to self-pollinate to help preserve their species.
- Flowers and Pollination
- What is Pollination?
- Pollination
- Pollination of Plants by Insects
- Partners in Pollination
Types of Pollination
Plants can transfer their pollen in many different ways. Most plants rely on animals, like hummingbirds or bees, to pick up their pollen and transfer it to a different plant. Pollination of this kind, where the assistance of another living organism is involved, is known as biotic pollination. Some plants, though, can spread their pollen with the help of the wind or water. This is called abiotic pollination. Plants that rely on abiotic pollination will often have very large or multiple stigma to increase the chances of catching pollen, whereas plants who rely on biotic pollination do just fine with only one stigma.
Remembering the two types of pollination might be difficult, but there's an easy way to memorize it. The word "biotic" means "relating to life". You've heard "bio" in words like "biology" and "biological" - these all refer to different forms of plant and animal life, and you can think back to those to remember that biotic pollination requires the help of insects and animals. Abiotic, on the other hand, means "without anything biotic," and is a process that doesn't involve any form of plant or animal life. That leaves only natural processes, like wind and water, to assist the pollen. Easy, right?
- Types of Pollination
- Asexual Reproduction in Plants
- What Prevents Self-Pollination?
- Pollination and the Ecosystem
Cross-Pollination vs. Self-Pollination
Some flowers are capable of self-pollination, which means that they don't need to transfer pollen to another plant at all. The pollen stays on the plant and the plant produces a seed with its exact genetic material. However, self-pollination reduces the strength and genetic diversity of the plant, so most flowers have come up with clever ways to encourage cross-pollination. Cross-pollination happens when the pollen from one plant is transferred to the stigma of a different plant. Cross-pollination ensures that the new seed has a larger array of genetic material to work with, and may even create a new plant altogether! Hybrid plants, like the pluot, are cross-pollinated by humans to ensure a consistent crop.
- Cross-pollination
- Floral Bouquets
- Pollination Strategies
- Self-Pollination (PDF)
- 11 Odd Hybrid Fruits and Vegetables
Pollinators
Pollinators are the different kinds of insects, birds, and animals that help transfer pollen from one plant to another. Many brightly colored flowers evolved that way to help attract pollinators. For example, the hardy fuchsia has bright red and purple petals to attract hummingbirds, and also supplies nectar for the hummingbirds to drink. While the hummingbird is drinking, pollen rubs off onto the hummingbird's head, and the hummingbird carries it to the next flower. Bees are another famous pollinator. They're useful to farmers because unlike the picky hummingbirds, bees enjoy feeding on and pollinating many different kinds of flowers.
Pollinators may not seem that important, but it's thanks to them that we can enjoy many different foods and 75% of the world's flowering plants. If pollinators like bees disappeared, so would foods like strawberries, apples, and even chocolate. There are some concerns from scientists that pollinators like the bee are slowly disappearing, due to things like pesticides and the loss of natural habitat. There's still a lot of research to be done on the decline of pollinators, but it's an important issue to know about. Plus, by learning more about pollinators, we can learn more about how plants and animals work together!
- Pollinator Syndromes (PDF)
- Pick the Pollinator Online Game
- Flower Arrangements Online
- Bees: Buzz Pollination
- Flower Power Bee Pollinator Video
- Bees and Pollination
- Pollinators Crossword Puzzle
This article was posted by Chad Kremp
