Day 17: 07:30 hours…
To speed up our overland journey, Tara and I have assembled her flyer. The rover is left safely in the grass at the edge of an expansive lawn and garden. This area appears excellent for observing how insects and plants work together.
Our first encounter is with a beautiful large 4-winged insect. The butterfly uses a long tube-like snout to reach deep into a flower’s inner parts, extracting irresistible sweet nectar — but why would a plant would produce sweet nectar?
Moments later we spy a faster moving flower-feeder… a furry fellow that picks up yellowish pollen grains as it burrows into the flower for nectar – a honeybee. Why would a plant want to attract these insects?
Pollen is the answer! By luring them with sweet nectar, the flower uses both the honeybee and the butterfly for the same purpose. Pollen sticks to the insects. When they fly to another flower, the pollen is transferred, and seeds begin developing. This is the process of pollination.
The flowers that grow into fruits, nuts, and berries are all pollinated by insects.
12:30 hours… Plants and insects have a perfect symbiotic relationship! The two species help each other.
We believe that many insects have life cycles that coincide with the growing season of flowering plants. Spring!
The adult forms of insects such as the butterfly are busy during the same season that plants are producing flowers. And since flowers are a flowering plant’s way of making seeds, it can be said that a flowering plant essentially tricks insects into helping it make more plants.
Honeybees are particularly good pollinators. They travel far from their hives in search of the sweet nectar from which they make honey. This behavior sends them visiting and pollinating hundreds of flowers a day.
This is why a honeybee is a gardener and fruit grower’s best friend.
If the honeybee population were to suffer from pesticides or insect disease, it could hurt not only the busy bees themselves, but also the plants and people who rely on them.
14:30 hours…
We soon discover that the beautiful world of the flower garden is also home to destructive pests!
Small insects called aphids make a home on plant stems. There are thousands of them! They use their beaks to suck out the sap and fluids, which is certainly not beneficial to the plant. We wonder what stops these pesky little juice-suckers from killing the plant?
With the sound of crunching and munching we are alerted that company is here! The aphids are now the snack of choice. Two kinds of predator insects have arrived to feast on the pests — and they are hungry! The predators gobble the plant parasites as fast as they can munch.
The larger of the predators, the soldier beetle, eats so quickly that sticky sap and chewed-up aphids collect on its mouth parts. But this is the neatest insect we have ever seen! It periodically wipes its mouth clean with its front set of legs.
Another predator, the ladybird beetle, or ladybug, is equally voracious when it comes to devouring the bothersome aphids!
As we take to the air and make our way back to the rover, we look down to see scavanger insects picking at the carcass of a dead rodent – the beginning of another food chain. Just like the microworld of the pond, we now see that the backyard flower garden is a system of producers and consumers, of predators, prey and scavangers. Every organism plays a role in keeping the system alive and healthy.
A female aphid can produce many baby aphids (nymphs) every day. They are clones of the mother aphid. New plant growth in the flower garden can be quickly overcome by a carpet of tiny aphid nymphs, which begin making their own babies. Luckily plant-friendly predators such as ladybugs find aphids to be delicious.
Flowers are a plant’s way of making seeds. Some flowers are pollinated by wind and air, others by insects. When an insect dives into the middle of the flower seeking sweet-tasting nectar, pollen grains from the stamens stick to its body. When the insect moves on, the pollen is transferred to the pistol of a new flower. It travels down the pistol to the ovary where it develops into seeds.