Pollinators are crucial for growing fruits and seeds, but climate change can disrupt their timing and location, leading to mismatches with plants.
56 million years ago, a rapid global warming period happened, known as the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM).
During the PETM, Earth’s temperature rose by around 6°C, and the warming lasted for over 100,000 years.
The event was likely triggered by volcanic activity and methane gas release from the oceans.
PETM’s carbon release was huge, but it happened about 10 times slower than today’s climate change. This gave ecosystems more time to adapt.
Scientists studied fossil pollen from the Bighorn Basin in Wyoming to understand how pollination changed.
Pollen fossils are ideal for studying ancient plant life because they are durable, widespread, and well-preserved.
Their findings showed that animal pollination increased, while wind pollination declined during the warming period.
Wind-pollinated plants declined, likely because they couldn’t survive the hotter conditions. Whereas animal-pollinated plants from dry tropical areas spread into new regions.
This plant movement likely caused pollinating animals to shift their range as well, following the plants they relied on.
These changes helped form new plant and animal communities, even supporting early mammals like primates and marsupials.
Despite dramatic changes, most species and their relationships survived, possibly because the warming happened more slowly than today.
If we can slow down today’s climate change, we may avoid mass extinctions and allow ecosystems to adapt.
Read more at: Phys.org
Study published in Paleobiology