While it’s long been known that having a wide range of plants attracts pollinators like bees, butterflies and bats, a new Iowa State University study finds pollinators may be an important factor in supporting plant diversity.
ISU ecology professor Brian Wisley says over four years, researchers carefully set up and monitored plots of restored prairie and in some areas, purposely excluded access to bees.
Wisley says they found less seed production and fewer plant species at the bee-free plots.
“There’s a lot of things that we’ve looked at and how to get seeds established,” Wisley says. “I would have never thought the pollinators were important for plant diversity and plant establishment.”
Wisley says the results from the plots where bees were kept out surprised him.
“When you do that, there are fewer plant species that establish,” he says, “and so there’s about a 27% lower number of plant species in those plots where there weren’t bees.”
Wisley says the study is ongoing and they will continue to monitor the plots.
(Natalie Krebs, Iowa Public Radio)