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A tiny organism called pollen pulls off one of nature's key tasks: plant reproduction. Pollination involves a complex network of different species interacting with one another and mutually adapting to their ecosystems, which are constantly changing.
Some pollen grains require just a puff of wind to set them in motion, but most plants depend on creatures gifted with mobility. These might be birds, bats, reptiles, or insects including butterflies, beetles, flies, wasps, and over twenty thousand species of bee. In Paths of Pollen Stephen Humphrey asks readers to imagine a tipping point where plants and pollinators can no longer adapt to stressors such as urbanization, modern agriculture, and global climate change. Illuminating the science of pollination ecology through evocative encounters with biologists, conservationists, and beekeepers, Humphrey illustrates the significance of pollination to such diverse concerns as food supply, biodiversity, rising global temperatures, and the resilience of landscapes.
As human actions erase habitats and raise the planet's temperature, plant diversity is dropping and a growing list of pollinators faces decline or even extinction. Paths of Pollen chronicles pollen's vital mission to spread plant genes, from the prehistoric past to the present, while looking towards an ecologically uncertain future.
Illustrations vii
Acknowledgments xi
Prologue - Pollen’s Progress: Where’s It All Going (and Where Has It Been)? 3
1 A Prehistory of Pollen 10
2 Pollinators Painted the World 21
3 When Bees Are Not Bees and Flowers Are Not Sweet 34
4 Floral Darwinisms 47
5 Casting Pollen to the Wind 59
6 Bee Flowers and Earth Mothers 69
7 Mutual Exploitation 83
8 No Bee Is an Island 92
9 Honeybees Aren’t Good at Everything 105
10 The Curious Case of the Vanishing Bees 115
11 Desperately Seeking Bumblebees 127
12 Insect Noses and Night Flowers 138
13 Butterflies, Bats, and Border Walls 147
14 A Few Degrees in the Future 157
15 Last Flowers? Shrinking Pollination options 171
16 Sunflowers and Space Invaders 179
17 Pollination Influencers and Urban Prairies 188
18 Bees and Neighbours 198
19 Turning over New Leaves 206
Notes 215
Index 239
Stephen Humphrey is a writer, radio contributor, and citizen naturalist originally from Western Canada, now based in Toronto.
"Stephen Humphrey is a highly accomplished, and engaging storyteller. In the manner of Carl Sagan or Aldo Leopold, he calls attention to little-known or misunderstood topics, and presents these to an often science-hostile public. Paths of Pollen advances the cause of pollinator and plant conservation for their benefits to all humankind and wildlife, now and in the future. I couldn't put it down."
– Stephen Buchmann, author of What a Bee Knows: Exploring the Thoughts, Memories, and Personalities of Bees
