You have 5 sites to visit.

#1    Pollinators Impact on crops

While this is a rather scientific article, reading it will give you some insight into the pollinators impact on important food crops.  Focus your note taking on the need for pollinators on two important crops:  corn and soybeans.

·        Which crop (corn or soybeans) benefits the most from pollinators?   Support your answer with reasons.

#2    Bees & Corn

Corn is an important food crop in the Midwest.  When you detassel, you are removing the male portion of the plant, the tassel, from the plant, leaving behind the female part of the plant, the silk and ear.  Take a look at a cornfield or better yet, take a walk into a field, have you noticed any colorful flowers?  I hope not, because the corn plant does not produce colorful or fragrant flowers, even though it is a flowering plant.

·        Does the corn plant rely on insect pollinators like the honeybee?

·        Predict how you think the corn crop will be affected with the extinction of the honeybees.  Explain.

#3    Pollinator Populations

Are insect pollinators declining in population?  Evidence suggests that some populations of pollinators are diminishing. The US Fish and Wildlife Service lists over 50 pollinator species as threatened or endangered.

·        Why is the economic impact of the loss of pollinators difficult to predict?

#4    The Truth about the Birds and the Bees.

The article titled The truth about the Birds and the Bees gives an explanation of the economic impact of losses of honeybees for food crops.  The cost of declining honeybee populations is estimated at $5.7 billion to  food crops every year in the U.S.  This author does not seem terribly concerned about the declining bee populations.

·        The author makes this statement But the future for pollinators is not entirely bleak.  Why is an extinction of honeybees not death sentence for food crops?

#5    Pollinators and other crops

You will be amazed at the list of food plants grown in the Midwest that are pollinated by bees.

 

·        Why are the fruits of food crops like strawberries larger when pollinated by bees?