This may sound great at first glance, but researchers say it could signal the start of a “vicious cycle.”
The world is undergoing an insect apocalypse, with our buggy friends experiencing global mass population decreases at an estimated 2 percent yearly due to a woeful combination of climate change, pesticides, habitat loss, and other human-made ills.
How are flora — which often rely on insects for pollination — adapting to this massive change within the worldwide food chain? Researchers in France have now revealed one way: turning to self-pollination.
In a new study published in the journal New Phytologist, researchers have found that wildflowers in a patch of farm meadow in the Paris region have increasingly adapted to self-fertilization.