How Do Animals Help Flowering Plants Reproduce?

Hitching a Ride

• Some pollen and seeds are carried to new locations by wind or water, but other pollen and seeds rely on animals to carry them. Pollen contains a sticky substance that allows it to stick to insects and birds that stop to feed on the flower's nectar; the pollen is carried to another plant by the insect or bird as it continues to feed. Some seeds travel in a similar way by attaching to passersby with barbs that cling to fur.

Digestion

• Another way that animals help flowering plants reproduce is by consuming their seeds. Plants produce fruit that animals are attracted to. The animal eats the fruit, which contains the seeds, and eventually the seeds are eliminated and arrive in a new location. Once the seeds land in a new home, they can germinate if the environmental and soil conditions are conducive, including sunlight, soil, water and temperature.

Pollinators

• According to National Geographic, over 200,000 species of animals help flowering plants reproduce. Bees are well-known for their important pollinating activities, but flies and beetles have been pollinating for 130 million years. Bats, hummingbirds, mosquitoes, ants, butterflies and slugs also do a lot of pollination heavy lifting, as well as lizards and mammals like monkeys and opossums. Pollinators play a very important role in many of the food crops on which humans rely.

Asexual Reproduction

• While some flowering plants rely on animals to spread their pollen and seeds, other plants are able to reproduce without them, by pollinating themselves with the male and female parts of the same plant. Some plants that normally use pollinators can even reproduce asexually at certain times. Other plants have means of reproducing without their flowers being fertilized. One disadvantage of asexual reproduction is that it produces less biological diversity in a species, since it produces an identical copy of the parent plant.