50 million years ago, while gymnosperms gradually evolved to more advanced angiosperms and wind-borne flowers evolved to insect-borne flowers, the little bees had formed a mutually beneficial and close relationship with the flowers of plants. While the bees collect nectar on the flowers, the fluff on the body will be full of pollen grains, and the bees will crawl around on different flowers and will consciously or unconsciously pass the sperm and pollinate the flowers.
Pollination (pollination) type
Pollination (pollination) is a process by which plants bear fruit. Flowers usually have some yellow powder, that is, pollen, which needs to be passed on to certain flowers of the same plant, and the process of transferring pollen from the stamen anthers to the pistil stigma or ovules is called pollination.
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Under natural conditions, pollination is divided into two forms: self-pollination and cross-pollination. Gymnosperms mainly use wind power to pollinate, which is a passive form; angiosperms rely mainly on insect pollination.
Self-pollination refers to pollination of the pistils and stamens in the same flower, and the pollen in the anther falls on the pistil stigma of the same flower and can be fertilized normally to form seeds. There are fewer self-pollinating plants in nature, and closed pollination is typical of self-pollination, that is, fertilization has been completed before flowering (typical of peas and peanuts). Self-pollination is the adaptation of plants to the lack of pollination conditions, and the chance of fertilization is large, but it is not conducive to maintaining the vitality of offspring.
Cross-pollination refers to the female and male flowers through the wind, water, insects or human activities to spread pollen between different flowers or different plants through different channels to the pistil flower column, a series of processes of fertilization called cross-pollination. Cross-pollination is an evolutionary form compared with self-pollination, because the pollen of cross-pollination usually comes from different plants or different flowers, the hereditary differences between the two are large, and the offspring produced after fertilization often have strong vitality and adaptability, which plays a powerful role in the reproduction of plant races.
Pollinator
Plant cross-pollination must rely on the help of various external forces, and in the long-term evolutionary process, plant pollination has formed a variety of media with a high degree of adaptability. Pollinators are usually divided into biological and non-biological vectors.
Non-biological vectors
1. Wind media
The pollination method with wind as the pollinator is called the wind medium, which is the most typical pollination method of non-biological media. Wind media are particularly prevalent in plants such as the grass family and the sedge family. Most gymnosperms such as pine, fir, cypress, etc. and woody plants such as oak, poplar, birch, etc. are wind-borne plants. Wind pollination is generally considered to be a more primitive form of pollination than insect pollination.
2. Water medium
The pollination method of using water as a pollinator is called water medium. Waterborne pollination is divided into aqueous pollination and underwater pollination. There are two types of underwater pollination, one is that both the female and male flowers are in the water, and the pollen is spread in the water for pollination (such as snapdragon). One is the type of female flower that is near the bottom of the water and pollinates by sinking pollen (such as Zygophyllum).
3. Rain Medium
Rain medium is when it rains the flowers do not close, with the help of rain flow pollen. Some plants of the genus Black Pepper and Saffron pollinate in this way.
Biological mediators
Refers to the phenomenon of pollination by insects, snails, birds, bats, monkeys, humans and other biological media, of which insects are the main vectors of pollination by angiosperms.
1. Bird Medium
Become a bird medium with the help of bird pollination. Bird flowers are generally large , bright red , odorless , and have thicker petals ( e.g. hibiscus , cacti , etc.) .
2. Bat medium
Bats play a role in pollination when catching insects to stay on flowers or nibble at petals as they fly back and forth. Bat pollination plants include gibes, baobabs, electric lantern flowers, etc., of which agave is the most representative.
3. Insect vectors
The method of pollination by insects is called insect vectors. Most flowering plants rely on insect vectors for pollination, and common pollinators include bees, moths, etc. Insect-borne flowers generally have the following characteristics: (1) multiple special odors to attract insects; (2) most of them can produce honey juice; (3) large and prominent flowers, bright colors; (4) structurally and pollinators are usually adapted to each other.
Bee pollination you need to know little knowledge
In nature, with the long-term survival and development, the relationship between animals and animals, animals and plants has formed an interdependent and mutually restrictive relationship. As plant species increase, pollinators are provided with a richer food source. Insects such as bees promote pollen transmission in the process of collecting nectar as a food reserve.
As an important pollinator, bees and other pollinators are very sensitive to environmental conditions, and bee pollination can effectively avoid pollution from fertilizers, pesticides, hormones and herbicides, providing an excellent guarantee for the production of high-yield, organic and green food.
At present, bees, bumblebees, leaf-cutting bees, wall bees and so on have been domesticated as pollinating insects at home and abroad.
bee
(1) Oriental bee
Distributed in eastern, central and southern Asia, it is an important germplasm resource in China, except for Inner Mongolia and Xinjiang, the oriental bee is almost every corner of China. Oriental honey bees emerge early in early spring to collect early nesting, are extremely good at using sporadic honey sources, have mite resistance, can pollinate crops and fruit trees that bloom in early spring, and breed bees and bees in mountain areas are extremely beneficial.
Chinese bees in collection (Photo by Shao Youquan)
(2) Western bees
Native to Europe, Africa and the Middle East, Western honey bees have now spread to every continent except Antarctica with the carrying and commercial movement of European immigrants. It has become the main species of beekeeping production in many countries and regions.
Italian bees collecting Privets (Photo by Li Zhiyong)
(3) Other bees
bumblebee
Bumblebees are large, long-lived, fluffy, have a long snout, have strong gathering power, have long daily working hours, and use honey powder sources more efficiently than other bee species. Bumblebees can resist harsh environments, have strong adaptability to low temperatures and low light density, and can continue to collect their nests even in the cold weather when bees do not leave their nests. Bumblebee has poor phototropism, does not fly against the glass like a bee, but is very docile to collect pollen........ As a result, bumblebees have become more ideal pollinators than bees in greenhouses.
Bumblebee artificial breeding process (courtesy of Huang Jiaxing)
Bumblebee collecting strawberries (Photo by Shao Youquan)
Wall bees
Wall bees are excellent pollinators of rose trees such as apples, peaches, pears, and cherries, as well as greenhouse vegetables. Wall bees are wild solitary insects with low temperature resistance, fast collection speed, no need for artificial feeding, and easy management.
Wall bees collected in the wild (Photo by Liu Yuling)
Leaf cutter bees
Leaf-cutting bees are of many species, widely distributed, numerous, close to humans, prefer to live in nesting materials provided by humans, and are one of the few insects that can be domesticated in large quantities. Existing domestic leafcutters are mainly used for alfalfa pollination.
Leaf-cutting bees in the collection (Photo by Shao Youquan)
At present, affected by the traditional farming mode, many farmers still cannot realize the importance and necessity of bee pollination to increase yield and improve quality; a small number of renters lack awareness of the safe use of pesticides and lack of experience in bee colonies, resulting in a large number of deaths of bee colonies before completing pollination tasks, resulting in waste of resources. Therefore, changing the development concept of the beekeeping industry, adjusting the production structure of the beekeeping industry, developing ecological beekeeping, and taking the road of new industrialization and commercial development can promote the sustainable development of beekeeping and green agriculture.
The above is an excerpt from
"Painting Bee Pollination Efficiency Technology"
Editor-in-chief| Guo Yuan
Responsible editor| Zhang Guofeng
Cover design | Sun Baolin Tian Jing
China Agricultural Science and Technology Press
Bees are closely related to human survival. Promoting pollination of bee crops can not only increase crop yields, improve product quality, and increase farmers' income, but also play a very important role in maintaining ecological balance. It is a long-term task to change the concept of beekeeping and promote the transformation and upgrading of the bee industry. With the in-depth development of science and technology and the needs of agricultural industrialization development, bee pollination technology has been widely used in production practice.
The bee pollination industry is an important part of modern agriculture and a low-carbon, environmentally friendly green economy. At present, China should vigorously publicize the role of bee pollination in increasing agricultural production and maintaining ecological balance, introduce laws and regulations to protect pollination, cultivate leading enterprises, promote the process of industrialization, drive agricultural production and increase farmers' income, and raise the protection of bees to the height of protecting human beings.