Bumblebees Trick Plants Into Flowering Early, Study Finds

“I think it’s fascinating how much we still don’t know about organisms that we think we know really well,” study coauthor and ETH Zurich professor Consuelo De Moraes told BBC News. “It absolutely increases our sense of wonder at the cleverness of nature in all its many forms.”

Bumblebees Trick Plants Into Flowering Early, Study Finds

Animals

Holger Casselmann / Wikimedia / CC BY-SA 3.0

The climate crisis has caused Japanese cherry blossoms to bloom in October and sped the arrival of spring in much of the U.S. But it turns out that humans aren’t the only animals who can trick plants into flowering early.

Scientists have discovered that bumblebees can cause plants to flower as much as 30 days ahead of schedule by biting their leaves.

“I think it’s fascinating how much we still don’t know about organisms that we think we know really well,” study coauthor and ETH Zurich professor Consuelo De Moraes told BBC News. “It absolutely increases our sense of wonder at the cleverness of nature in all its many forms.”