Pollinators and Flowers: A Beautiful Relationship

Flowering plants appeared on the planet some 130 million years ago; in a mere 40 million years they became the dominate plants on Earth. Gymnosperms, the dominate plants just before flowers, scattered their pollen on the wind. Some flowering plants, like oak trees, still rely on this method for fertilization, but many flowers have developed a more efficient strategy. They enlisted the aid of animals who, as they traveled, transfered pollen stuck on their bodies from the male part of one plant to the female part or from a male plant to a female plant.

Through time and natural selection forces, flowers adapted a variety of methods to attract pollinators; likewise, pollinators adapted ways to best take advantage of what flowers have to offer namely, food. When two organisms adapt to each other in this way, scientists say they have “coevolved.”

Flowers use color, scent, shape and sometimes deception to attract pollinators to their flowers. Animals evolved mouths, beaks, feet and wings (to name a few) to more easily obtain food offered by flowers.

This dance of adaptations in the last 130 million years created an explosion of plant and animal diversity which continues to the present day.