Climate crisis is upending plant-pollinator relations

Pollinators play a vital role in fertilising flowers, which grow into seeds and fruits and underpin our agriculture. But climate change can cause a mismatch between plants and their pollinators, affecting where they live and what time of year they're active. This has happened before.

- The Conversation

When Earth went through rapid global warming 56 million yearsago, plants from dry tropical areas expanded to new areas—and so did their animal pollinators. A new study, published in Paleobiol-ogy, shows this major change happened ina remarkably short times-pan of just thousands of years.

Can we turn to the past to learn more about how interactions between plants and pollinators changed during climate change? That's what the authors set out to learn. A major warming event 56 million years ago In the last 150 years, humans have raised atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations by more than 40%. This increase in carbon

THE CURRENT GREENHOUSE GAS CONCENTRATIONS AND TEMPERATURE ARE NOT ONLY UNPRECEDENTED IN HUMAN HISTORY BUT EXCEED ANYTHING KNOWN IN 2.5 MN YRS

dioxide has already warmed the planet by more than 13°C.