By: Jacob Zari
Researchers have discovered fossils of insects containing pollen that date back to 280 million years ago, which is about 120 million years older than the previously oldest-known pollen-containing fossils.
Close to the village of Chekarda in Russia, scientists studied 425 Tillyardembia fossils, finding six that contained pollen on their bodies.
Even though this finding was discovered in Russia, there can still be some impact from this in Statesboro. In early spring, Statesboro tends to receive huge amounts of pollen. Dr. Joshua Gibson is an Assistant Professor of biology at Georgia Southern, focusing primarily on insects.
“The pollen that we tend to get in huge amounts in Statesboro is from the local pine trees, which are gymnosperms (the same major group of plants that are the focus of the article),” Gibson explains. “The primary way these plants spread their pollen is through the wind. They release huge amounts of it and the wind carries it away. Some of it will land on other pine trees, but of course a lot of it lands on our cars and just about anything else sitting outside at that time of year.”
Dr. Jennifer Zettler is a Professor of biology at Georgia Southern as well, and she focuses on the interactions between insects and plants. She mentions that, “the pine from oaks and pines are carried from one plant to the next by the wind. This makes the odds of fertilization low so these trees have to produce large quantities of pollen just to ensure pollination success.”
Gibson adds, “While it's possible these early insects were actively pollinating these species, most gymnosperms still primarily use wind pollination so it might not have ‘caught on’ from an evolutionary perspective until some plants started producing flowers with nectar rewards.”
Even though this discovery may not have a major impact on Statesboro, there is another way that this can serve a purpose to scientists.
“I think this can serve as an important reminder about plant life cycles,” Gibson explains. “We often forget that plants are living organisms that have complex processes that they are undergoing every day. Plants are producing pollen so that they can continue to produce new plants in the same way that animals search for mates in order to continue producing new animals.
One of Dr. Zettler’s takeaways from the finding is that, “flowering plants are now the most diverse and abundant of the plants and much of their success is tied to the partnership that they have with insect pollinators.”
She goes on to explain that partnership, “For plants that are pollinated by an insect (such as a bee, butterfly, or fly), the flowers reward the pollinator with a reward such as nectar to encourage the pollinator to visit more of the same flowers. This means that these plants have directed dispersal with higher pollination success with less pollen production.”
Dr. Gibson’s final thought concerning this study was how scientists are able to find so much with so little data.
“Think about it, we are able to tell something about the behavior of insects that lived 80 million years before mammals ever evolved,” Gibson says. “And we're able to tell this because just six fossilized insects had pollen sticking to their body, out of a total of 425 fossils that were examined. To me that's one of the most incredible things about science and this is a really great example of that.”