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  • Jacks

    Pollinating Partners

    From the Pollinator Partnership website:

    Pollination is vital to our survival and the existence of nearly all ecosystems on earth. 80% of the world's crop plants depend on pollination. Pollinators, almost all of which are insects, are indispensable partners for an estimated 1 out of every 3 mouthfuls of food, spices and condiments we eat, and the beverages we drink. They are essential to the fibers we use, the medicines that keep us healthy, and more than half of the world's diet of fats and oils. Insect pollinators, including honey bees, pollinate products amounting to $20 billion annually in the U.S. alone.

    There is an extensive digital library available on their website at http://pollinator.org/resources.htm

    We need bugs! :)
    Jacks started this discussion 1 year ago. ( reply )

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  • Sharon Fawcett 

    Insects are important not only for pollination, but for our birds and other wildlife that depend on them for food. I enjoyed time spent on the lawn today listening to the birds chirp. If it weren't for the insects, I'd not have been able to enjoy that beautiful music.

    Yesterday a truck transporting 12 million honeybees overturned not far from where I live. Insects in huge numbers can wreak havoc; the highway had to be closed!
    posted 1 year ago. ( reply )
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    • Jacks

      Jacks 

      Oh my gosh! 12 MILLION? I can't even fathom . It sounds like an Alfred Hitchcock movie!
      posted 1 year ago. ( reply )
    • jabberwocky

      jabberwocky 

      set up some hives ...maybe some will stay ;0)
      posted 1 year ago. ( reply )
  • Katydid

    Katydid 

    Insects play a vital role in a whole bunch of ecosystem "services". Decomposition and cleanup is another biggie...including the obvious characters, like dung beetles, and the less obvious ones, like all the little guys in dead wood, leaf litter, and at the soil surface, munching away on environmental detritus. Hooray for the fungus beetles!

    (I digress a bit from the discussion, but I'm an insect fiend!)
    posted 1 year ago. ( reply )
  • FlowerFly

    FlowerFly 

    Here is a website about pollinating insects that I created when I was working for Montana State University Extension Services:
    http://diagnostics.montana.edu/Insect/Pollinators/
    posted 1 year ago. ( reply )
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