Why do pollinators matter?

Insect expert and champion of our campaign to grow more for pollinators, Prof. Dave Goulson explains...

Spring is here at last.

The first bumblebee queens are buzzing from flower to flower, freshly emerged from a long hibernation and starving hungry. Red mason bees are coming out of their tunnels and searching for a mate. If you are lucky, you might glimpse in your garden the butteryellow of a brimstone butterfly, or the splash of white and orange of a passing orange-tip.

As colourful harbingers of spring, they are a sign that warm days and sunshine are ahead, the sight and sound of these insects gladdens the heart, but these creatures are also enormously important. Without pollinators, 87 per cent of all plant species on our planet would set few or no seeds. Three quarters of the crops we grow need insect pollinators; without them, we would not have apples, strawberries, runner beans, tomatoes, blueberries and much more besides. Even coffee and chocolate both rely on pollinators. We’d be left with windpollinated crops such as wheat, barley and oats, and would have to subsist on a diet of porridge, bread and rice.

Insects have been quietly pollinating for more than 100 million years. They do not do it out of kindness to flowers, but for their own selfish reasons. They are lured to visit flowers by the colourful petals and sweet scent, promising the rewards of sugary nectar and protein-rich pollen. As they travel from flower to flower, they spill a few grains of pollen, enough to fertilise the flowers so that they set fruits and seeds.

Ancient benefactors

Both flowers and their pollinators survived the meteor strike that’s blamed for wiping out the dinosaurs 65 million years ago. But today pollinators are in trouble – and it’s due to us. Our modern world, with its sprawling cities and crop monocultures, provides too few flowers or quiet places for them to nest. When they do find a flower, it is often contaminated with pollutants such as pesticides. Scientists say that we are now in the Anthropocene, an age dominated by man. The Anthropocene has not, so far, been kind to nature. Growing evidence suggests that many insects are in rapid decline, leading to the alarming prospect that our crop yields may soon start to fall, and our remaining wildflowers disappear.

Without pollinators, we wouldn’t have apples, strawberries, runner beans, tomatoes and much more besides