The age-old relationship between flowers and insect pollinators is undergoing significant changes as a recent study suggests that flowers are adapting to the decreasing number of insects, resulting in them becoming less attractive.
In a study published in the journal New Phytologist, researchers found that field pansies near Paris have become 10% smaller and produce 20% less nectar compared to flowers from the same fields two to three decades ago. The decline in pollinators has led these flowers to evolve towards self-pollination, potentially limiting their ability to adapt to future environmental changes.
Pierre-Olivier Cheptou, one of the study’s authors, noted that the flowers are “evolving towards self-pollination, where each plant reproduces with itself, which works in the short term but may well limit their capacity to adapt to future environmental changes.”
The study, utilizing “resurrection ecology,” involved germinating ancestral pansy plants collected from the 1990s and 2000s. Comparisons revealed significant changes in the flowers, indicating real-time evolution.
Dr. Philip Donkersley from Lancaster University described the findings as showing “evolution happening in real-time,” emphasizing that plants are undoing thousands of years of evolution in response to a phenomenon that has only existed for 50 years.
The decline in nectar production by plants has created a challenging cycle, leading to decreased food availability for insects, further accelerating their decline. As global insect populations continue to decline, urgent conservation measures are needed to address this issue.
A report in the Guardian cited the global insect population’s unprecedented decline at up to 2% per year, describing insects as “the fabric” that tethers together every freshwater and terrestrial ecosystem across the planet. The study underscores the importance of addressing pollinator decline and its impact on the evolutionary pathways of plant species.
