[Pollinator] From the Guardian: Autumn's fruit can tell us much about the health of our insec

[Peter Bernhardt]

Dear Laurie:

The article on "Autumn's Fruit" should be treated with suspicion.  It's the
word of some armchair naturalist commenting on a situation he did not
investigate months in advance.  Does he know the ploidy (chromosome number)
of his blackberry patch?  Many Rubus species have such high chromosome
numbers they make seeds without sex (agamospermy).  You can't blame poor
fruit set on pollinator decline every time.  Furthermore, shrubby berry
fruits have a number of fungal diseases that probably found those
"drupelets" before he did.  The unusually wet, pre-Olympic, English summer
would have helped spread spores.  A colleague in Kent complained about the
rain this summer.

Peter

On Thu, Oct 11, 2012 at 1:11 PM, <Ladadams at aol.com> wrote:

> **
> I thought you might be interested in this link from the Guardian: Autumn's
> fruit can tell us much about the health of our insect pollinators -
> http://gu.com/p/3b2ja/em
>
>
> Laurie Davies Adams
> Executive Director
> Pollinator Partnership
> 423 Washington St. 5th Fl.
> San Francisco, CA 94111
> T: 415.362.1137
> F: 415.362.0176
>
> Follow up on Twitter <http://twitter.com/#!/Pollinators> and Facebook<http://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Pollinator-Partnership/48680445464>
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