Interactions Between Plants and Animals

      Close your eyes. Imagine yourself walking through a park or a forest. Look around and see the beautiful flowers and the plush grass, the tall trees and wild berry bushes. Now look closer. What do you see? Do you see bees fluttering around the roses and sunflowers or the blue jays picking at the ground and gathering up twigs? Or is it the family of deers prancing and having an afternoon snack that you see? The bees, birds, and deers are all showing examples of interactions in nature: an interaction that involves animals and plants and depends on both to keep the cycle going.

     

      The bees and the flowers that you visualized are examples of plant/insect interactions. The bees gather nectar for their honey while collecting pollen for the roses. The bees need the nectar to live. They need to make honey for the Queen Bee. The flowers need the bees to distribute pollen so the flower can reproduce. Without one of these species, both of these species would not exist.

      Remember the trees you saw? How about the birds? These two organisms in nature complete a plant/animal interaction. The birds pick up the fallen branches and make a nest in the tree. The birds also jostle around the branches and leaves which helps spread the seeds to reproduce the tree. This relationship also is need for the continuation of both organisms.

      The last part of your picture were the deers and the bushes they were snacking from. The fruit of the bushes contains seeds, that contain the embryo of the plant. When the deers eat the seeds they digest and dispose to the seeds somewhere else. That process reproduces the plant by dispersing the seeds to in turn, get germinated in another location. This interaction between plants and mammals, feeds the deers and continues the plant species.

      Plant and animal interactions are vital for the survival of both plant and animal. You really can't have one without the other. Believe it or not, we as humans need these relationships to survive ourselves. Bees, and birds, and deers pollinate the food that we need to live. These interactions are so important to our worlds botanical make-up. 

Economics & Botany

     Most people think that plants are just for show; that there only purpose is to make our yards look pretty and for us to smell. But not very many people understand that our economy relies on plants to keep it going. Take for example your clothes. The clothes you are wearing right now are directly or indirectly produced from plants. Most clothing nowadays is made from cotton because of cotton availability and low cost. The cotton industry makes roughly $27 billion a year, which includes everything from farmers revenue to merchants and textile mills revenue.

     Another big plant that does alot for our economy is corn. Corn makes more items that we use daily than anyone would expect. Aside from your average kitchen foods corn is also found in cosmetics, some plastics, crayons and chalk, latex paint, insulation, pharmaceuticals, livestock feed (feeds our cows that make our burgers and steaks), toothpaste, lotions, shaving creams, gasoline and much, much more. Try imagining your daily routine without these items.

     The last big plant that has a huge impact on the worlds economy is soy. Soy is in our food, car seats, home insulation, candles, yarn, socks, lip balm, and furniture polish. And that isn't even the half of it. Soy is also being used for meat and dairy substitutes. It allows those that have dairy allergies to enjoy milk and cheese.

     These three are just a few a the big plants that our economy really rely on. There are many more that impact our economy and make our products. Without these plants our economy would be lost and our life wouldn't be the same.