Pollination Essay

Without pollination, the human race, as well as it’s terrestrial ecosystems would cease to exist. Over 80% of the world’s flowering plants require the aid of a pollinator in order to continue their existence (U.S. Forest Service). Pollination is the process of transporting pollen grains from the male anther of a plant to the female stigma (“What is Pollination”). Through this process, plants are able to create a seed, this seed contains genetic information for production of new plant.

Plants have two different means of pollination; cross-pollination and self-pollination. During cross-pollination, in order to create a seed, pollen must first get from plant to plant with use of a vector. This vector can be wind, water, birds, insects or any other animal that visits the plant, these are referred to as “pollinators”. In general, pollination is a fortuitous consequence of animal to plant interaction. The animals are usually eating pollen or taking nectar for it’s nutritional content. When the animal gets close to the flower, pollen may become attached to it’s body and when the animal goes to a different flower for the same reason, pollen can fall onto that flower’s stigma (“What is Pollination”).

There are many different types of pollinators, these include, hummingbirds, moths, bats, bees, beetles, flies, wasps and many more creatures. One of the most unusual pollinators, the hummingbird, is attracted to red, yellow, and orange tubular flowers, such as tulips (U.S. Forest Service). The hummingbird utilizes it’s long bill by sticking it down the flower to retrieve nectar, this results in their heads lightly covered in pollen. Nocturnal blooming flowers are pollinated by moths and bats who both work at night. The most efficient of all...

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...nment working directly against a population. If conditions were more moist and less dry, a relatively simple process such as pollination could be carried through successfully.

Pollination can go right during perfect weather conditions, mild temperatures and sunshine is prominent. Pollination must also be done between the same species. A species is a population of individuals who can breed freely, but they cannot with another species due to various boundaries. Pollenation cannot occur naturally between different species of plants (“What is Pollination”). At times, pollination can go wrong when soil moisture is low, and temperatures stay high for long periods of time. In maize plants, the pollen shed increases because the tassels emerge before they have had enough development time. Condensed pollination processes harm yield potentials of a crop such as maize (Cecich).