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Featured Resource
POLLINATION: An Essential Ecosystem Service Revealing secrets about the birds and the bees
• Many people think only of allergies when they hear the word pollen. But pollination — the transfer of pollen grains to fertilize the ovaries of flowers — is an essential part of a healthy ecosystem. While some plants are self-pollinated or wind-pollinated, most flowering plants require help from pollinators to produce fruit and seed.
• Pollinators come in all shapes and sizes. Over 100,000 invertebrate species — such as bees, moths, butterflies, beetles, and flies — serve as pollinators worldwide. At least 1,035 species of vertebrates, including birds, mammals, and reptiles, also pollinate many plant species.
• Pollinators play a significant role in the production of more than 150 food crops in the United States — from almonds, apples and alfalfa, to melons, plums, and squash. Almost all fruit and grain crops require pollination to produce their crop
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Featured Organization
Declining Pollination Task Force
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The Task Force on Declining Pollination is expected to be able to provide the scientific capacity by which sustainability of pollination systems can be achieved. This scientific capacity depends on interdisciplinary scientific expertise that combines botany, zoology, ecology, ethology, environmental sciences, and so on with economics and social sciences, extension education methodologies in synthesizing and appraising information, both old and new, through modern approaches in informatics.
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