BIODIVERSITY
Can you guess how honey is related to about one third of all the foods we eat?
Honeybees are the main species that helps food-producing plants to pollinate, which means to reproduce. When bees collect honey for the winter months they fly from flower to flower and bring pollen that sticks to their feet from one plant to the next. Bees (along with birds and butterflies) thereby ensure that we have fruits and vegetables to eat. And they ensure that other animals like cows, pigs, and chickens, also have food to eat. Bees keep the world fed!
A bee is the single most important animal to provide food on Earth, and it therefore plays a pretty big part in ensuring Biodiversity in the world. Biodiversity means all the different species of plants, animals and microorganisms on Earth. The Earth operates like an incredibly complex machine, with no unnecessary parts. Each species, from microbes to primates, plays a part in keeping the planet running smoothly. Every part is related.
Biodiversity can be found everywhere: on land, in rivers, lakes and oceans. The biggest variety of species live in tropical rainforests such as the Amazon rainforest or in coral reefs, like the Great Barrier Reef, in the oceans.
Biodiversity is essential to sustaining life on Earth. It provides all plants and animals with food or nutrients, water, oxygen to breathe (or carbon dioxide in the case of plants) and the means to reproduce. The Earth itself could be considered one big, living organism, as each species depends on others to ensure survival. Biodiversity keeps all living things in balance!
Seeing all the amazing creatures there are in nature is very exciting. If you spend a day in the woods, by the ocean, or on a mountain you will find so many more plants and animals than you will ever be able to remember. Keep your eyes open for all the fantastic things you can discover and make sure to do your part to help protect the biodiversity on our planet.
Amazing Bee Fact
For one pound of honey, bees visit two million flowers!
