Pollinators and Food Security
Pollinators such as bees and butterflies transfer pollen between flowers, enabling many of the crops we eat to produce fruit and seeds.
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Pollinators such as bees and butterflies transfer pollen between flowers, enabling many of the crops we eat to produce fruit and seeds.
- About one third of food depends on pollination
- Pesticides and habitat loss threaten bees
- Wildflower planting helps
🧠 Quick quiz
Three questions. Score 2 or more to complete the topic.
What is Pollinators and Food Security?
Within Earth & Environmental Science, which covers our planet, its resources and ecosystems, and how people can protect the environment, this topic explains Pollinators and Food Security. Earth and environment topics show how the planet’s systems shape landscapes, climate and life, with models that make these processes visible.
Check that you can explain Pollinators and Food Security in your own words and give one example from everyday life. If you can do that, you have understood the core idea.
Understanding Pollinators and Food Security helps you explain the environment around you and weigh up how people can protect it.
Pollinators and Food Security in detail
Pollinators, such as bees, butterflies, moths, hoverflies, beetles, bats and birds, move pollen between flowers, allowing plants to reproduce. About three-quarters of leading food crops, including fruits, vegetables, nuts and coffee, benefit from animal pollination, so pollinators are essential for food security and nutrition.
Pollinators are declining due to habitat loss, pesticides (such as neonicotinoids), disease and parasites (such as the varroa mite), invasive species and climate change. Ways to help include planting flowers rich in nectar and pollen, reducing pesticide use, leaving wild areas, providing nesting sites and supporting farming methods that protect habitat. Without pollinators, diets and economies would suffer.
How the interactive helps you understand Pollinators and Food Security
Watch the cycle in the interactive. Use any sliders or buttons it offers to change the values and see how the cycle responds.
Before you change anything, predict the result. Then change one value at a time and check whether your prediction was right. This is a quick way to build a correct mental model of Pollinators and Food Security.
Real-life uses and examples
- Link Pollinators and Food Security to a real environmental problem and a possible solution.
- Use a diagram of Pollinators and Food Security to describe the steps of a process in order.
- Discuss how human activity changes Pollinators and Food Security, using a named example.
Common mistakes to avoid
- Presenting one cause as the only cause of an environmental change.
- Describing a process without the timescale it works over.
- Learning the definition without testing it. Use the quiz and the interactive to check that you can apply the idea.
Frequently asked questions about Pollinators and Food Security
What is Pollinators and Food Security?
Pollinators such as bees and butterflies transfer pollen between flowers, enabling many of the crops we eat to produce fruit and seeds.
What are the most important points about Pollinators and Food Security?
The main points are: About one third of food depends on pollination; Pesticides and habitat loss threaten bees; Wildflower planting helps.
Why is Pollinators and Food Security useful?
Understanding Pollinators and Food Security helps you explain the environment around you and weigh up how people can protect it.
How can I practise Pollinators and Food Security?
Open the interactive at the top of this page and change the controls one at a time. Predict the result before each change, then take the three-question quiz. A score of two or more marks the topic as complete on this device.
Which topics are related to Pollinators and Food Security?
Related topics in Earth & Environmental Science include The Sun, Seasons and Earth's Orbit, Galaxies and the Universe.