Eli5 I just saw a meme that said bees are necessary for our existence. How does one species affect all human beings?
In: 5
A huge number of plants don’t have dicks, they have flowers. They need to have sex to produce seeds which sprout in a fruit which is delicious and hence carried away to other parts of the land where more baby plants can grow. Bees carry the semen of the female part of the plant to the male part of the plant or to another male plant since plants cannot move. Hence Bees are crucial. Actually everything is crucial to ecology as it’s “balanced” and we humans are just a tiny part of it.
Consider where you got the information: A meme.
You’ll see many comments saying “Bee’s pollinate crops”. This may be true for some niche crops, NOT “35% or more”.Most crops are self pollinating or wind pollinated.
Top 10 crops in the world:
1. Sugarcane – wind pollinated
2. Maize – self pollinated
3. Rice – self pollinated
4. Wheat – self pollinated
5. Oil palm fruit – actually pollinated by a weevil known as Elaeidobius kamerunicus
6. Potatoes – self pollinated
7. Soya Beans – self pollinated
8. Cassava – Wild stuff is pollinated by insects (not only bees) , wind, and rain, agriculturally raised varieties are manually pollinated by farmers (sticky stamen, easy to pollinate)
9. Sugar Beets – Wind Pollinated
10. Tomatoes – Self Pollinating
Literally none of the top 10 crops rely on bees, and only 1 somewhat uses them, and it uses tons of other insects too and also the wind.
Bee’s are cool and all, and pollinate a lot of things, but crops are not them. If we relied on bees to pollinate crops we wouldn’t be able to farm stuff in large quantities.
A huge number of plants don’t have dicks, they have flowers. They need to have sex to produce seeds which sprout in a fruit which is delicious and hence carried away to other parts of the land where more baby plants can grow. Bees carry the semen of the female part of the plant to the male part of the plant or to another male plant since plants cannot move. Hence Bees are crucial. Actually everything is crucial to ecology as it’s “balanced” and we humans are just a tiny part of it.
Consider where you got the information: A meme.
You’ll see many comments saying “Bee’s pollinate crops”. This may be true for some niche crops, NOT “35% or more”.Most crops are self pollinating or wind pollinated.
Top 10 crops in the world:
1. Sugarcane – wind pollinated
2. Maize – self pollinated
3. Rice – self pollinated
4. Wheat – self pollinated
5. Oil palm fruit – actually pollinated by a weevil known as Elaeidobius kamerunicus
6. Potatoes – self pollinated
7. Soya Beans – self pollinated
8. Cassava – Wild stuff is pollinated by insects (not only bees) , wind, and rain, agriculturally raised varieties are manually pollinated by farmers (sticky stamen, easy to pollinate)
9. Sugar Beets – Wind Pollinated
10. Tomatoes – Self Pollinating
Literally none of the top 10 crops rely on bees, and only 1 somewhat uses them, and it uses tons of other insects too and also the wind.
Bee’s are cool and all, and pollinate a lot of things, but crops are not them. If we relied on bees to pollinate crops we wouldn’t be able to farm stuff in large quantities.
Humans need plants, if not for ourselves to eat them, then for our food (animals) to eat them. Plants need bees to live. Without bees, plants die. Without plants, animals die. Without plants orrrrr animals to eat, humans die
Humans need plants, if not for ourselves to eat them, then for our food (animals) to eat them. Plants need bees to live. Without bees, plants die. Without plants, animals die. Without plants orrrrr animals to eat, humans die
Humans need plants, if not for ourselves to eat them, then for our food (animals) to eat them. Plants need bees to live. Without bees, plants die. Without plants, animals die. Without plants orrrrr animals to eat, humans die
Others have pointed out how bees, and other life forms, are key in the global ecosystem.
I think it’s worth pointing out that it’s not like if all the bees die then all life on Earth or even all humans on Earth go down with it. It just won’t be pretty to live in that world and many will die, but life will go on, adapt and eventually just carry on as it has for billions of years.
Others have pointed out how bees, and other life forms, are key in the global ecosystem.
I think it’s worth pointing out that it’s not like if all the bees die then all life on Earth or even all humans on Earth go down with it. It just won’t be pretty to live in that world and many will die, but life will go on, adapt and eventually just carry on as it has for billions of years.
There are a lot of species we need as they participate in the web of life with all the systems inside it. In the case of the bee the system involves plants creating nectar to attract bees that can help them pollinate. In the case of tigers, they keep certain prey species populations in balance so they don’t eat all vegetation which can have negative knock on effects . We can replace tigers in their role relatively easily whereas bees pollinate at such a scale that we currently cannot replicate what bees do, so losing them unlike losing a tiger would break a part of the web of life which can spell disaster.
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