The plants smothered by pollutants were visited by up to 70 percent fewer insects overall, and their flowers received up to 90 percent fewer visits compared with those in unpolluted plots.
About 75 percent of flowering plants and about 35 percent of food crops rely on animals to move pollen around so that plants can fertilize one another and form seeds.
Even the black-mustard plants used in the experiment, which can self-fertilize, exhibited a drop of 14 percent to 31 percent in successful pollination, as measured by three different pollination metrics.
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