A 15-acre Pollinator Performance Center is soon to come to Michigan State University’s south side of campus. The project was created through a partnership between MSU's department of Entomology, MSU AgBioResearch and MSU Extension.
The center will serve to be "MSU's home of pollinator studies, teaching, equipment and storage outreach," according to the Pollinator Performance Center's website.
The center is currently finishing construction that would add capacity for winter housing and install a honey extraction system, according to Farm Manager Dan Wyns. These improvements will not only finalize the construction of the center, but also allow MSU to amp up research into pollinators.
He said the bees are kept in artificial hives that are transported from farm to farm in order to pollinate crops. Beekeepers are contracted by farmers to transport and maintain bees while they are pollinating a farmer’s crops.
"The building will eventually contain a fully operational honey extraction facility and controlled climate rooms for indoor overwintering research. The facility will allow researchers to manage enough colonies to perform field trials and potentially develop a breeding program," the website said.
According to the USDA Forest Service, 80% of crop plants used around the world rely on pollination to reproduce and have noticeably higher crop yields after visits from pollinators. This includes almost all fruit and grain crops across the world.
But what draws a pollinator to a plant?
Chemical engineering senior Lauren Murray said that the answer can be found in the structure of a flower petal’s cells.
“The structure of [flower petals] always interested me because they’re all different,” said Murray. Murray analyzed the structure of five different flower petals under an electron microscope and found that some flower petals have flat cells while others have a conical shape.
Murray’s research is based on a 2009 report from Cambridge University where researchers analyzed the petal structure of insect-pollinated plants to determine what causes bees and other insect pollinators to prefer certain flowers over others.
