Question

While digesting your Thanksgiving dinner and chatting with relatives over Zoom, you describe the example of stingless (Euglossine) bees and the orchids they pollinate to your cousin, Serafina. She asks what was so interesting about this example. In other words, what was the take-home message from that example? Explain it to your cousin in terms she can understand (she is an attorney).

Answer 1

Stingless bees and orchids have a mutualistic symbiotic relationship where both benefit. Bees collect nectar as food, while helping in pollination. This example highlights how organisms can depend on each other for survival and reproduction.

Step-by-step explanation:

The take-home message from the example of stingless bees and the orchids they pollinate is that they have a mutualistic symbiotic relationship. This means that both the bees and the orchids benefit from their interaction. The bees collect nectar from the orchids as a food source, while the bees help in pollination by transferring pollen between flowers. This example shows how organisms can evolve together and develop adaptations that allow them to depend on each other for survival and reproduction.