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| What if Bees or Bananas went extinct?; Discussion time | |
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| Topic Started: Aug 6 2016, 11:43 PM (583 Views) | |
| Thylacine | Aug 6 2016, 11:43 PM Post #1 |
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I'm sure most of the people on this site are aware of the worldwide bee crisis that has been going on, with bee numbers dropping and all that, and you also may be aware that Bananas are reproduced asexually, and therefore are extremely susceptible to Panama Disease (which cannot be killed with fungicides). Hopefully obviously, bees are extremely important to the ecosystem of the planet, and bananas are a pretty staple food for humans and consist of a large part of a lot of third world countries economies. So this raises the question, what would happen if bees or bananas went extinct in the near future? Hopefully humans are able to prevent this, but what if they were too late? What domino effects would this cause? Could we see a bee-driven extinction event? Discuss. |
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| Finncredibad | Aug 7 2016, 12:32 AM Post #2 |
Edgy and Cool
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mass extinction of multiple plant species, causing the world ecosystem to topple and rebuild |
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| Thylacine | Aug 7 2016, 12:53 AM Post #3 |
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I was looking into this more and, well, shit |
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| Sheather | Aug 7 2016, 02:45 AM Post #4 |
 
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It is mainly the domestic honeybee that is in decline, but there are other wild bees and pollinating flies as well which are not in major decline and would quickly fill the niche of the common bee - not to say there wouldn't still be a food crisis, because humans haven't domesticated these insects in large numbers to pollinate their crops - but it wouldn't mean the extinction of all of our crops. As for bananas, it's only the Cavendish cultivar that is badly affected by Panama disease. There are immune varieties, though they are said to taste different from our commercial banana (many taste better, but are less productive.) Again, not a matter of no bananas, just more expensive, slightly different bananas. |
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| Monster | Aug 7 2016, 06:01 AM Post #5 |
Space Oddity
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Pretty much nothing of consequence would happen if bananas went extinct. Even if all of Musa went, aside from the economic impact on people who rely on bananas & plantains, it wouldn't be too bad... If honeybees became extinct, again, there would be some economic and food security issues (which could be serious for us in the short and medium term) but there are other insects to pollinate crops. For example I don't often see honeybees where I live & grow fruit and veg - I think my main pollinators are currently bumblebees and hoverflies. We'd simply have to adapt farming methods to accommodate these other insects (which would be beneficial in other ways) rather than rely too heavily on trucking honeybees around. |
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| lamna | Aug 7 2016, 06:40 AM Post #6 |
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The main people are worried about dessert bananas is that the world is set up to produced just one variety, Cavendish. There are other varies, but switching over would be massively expensive and time consuming. You could have a period of time when bananas were so expensive they pretty much disappear from people's diet. Which would be a inconvenience for consumers, terrible for the big companies that rely on bananas and catastrophic for the producers. But in 10 - 20 years things would be back to normal. Or maybe more varieties of banana would be offered for sale. Musa as a whole going would a major problem, plantains are a reliable staple food for millions of people, especially in Africa. Removing them would cause short term famine and long term more insecurity, as people rely on fewer and fewer crops. |
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| Nyarlathotep | Aug 7 2016, 08:16 AM Post #7 |
The Creeping Chaos
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Whew, it's a legit question, and isn't a lazy 'what if X happened' scenario like in the days of Yorick and such. That's always nice. As people said it far better above, bananas would be easy to live without, but bees would be another matter entirely. even if it was only honeybees eliminated, that's still a substantial loss of polination that would need to be replaced and fast.
Edited by Nyarlathotep, Aug 7 2016, 08:17 AM.
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| The Xenologist | Aug 7 2016, 02:46 PM Post #8 |
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I suppose if bees vanished (let's say it's just the honeybee), the question we would have to ask is: Would other pollinating insects immediately take up the slack, or is there a factor or factors inhibiting them from pollinating honeybee-associated plants? Bananas would probably not leave a major impact by disappearing except for people who rely on bananas economically. I don't think there are any species that rely heavily on bananas for survival. |
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| Thylacine | Aug 7 2016, 10:55 PM Post #9 |
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 So this is the distribution of Apis, and the red represents the Western Honey Bee, the animal we are proposing goes extinct (or all honeybees?).  If we look at the wikipedia page I listed above (here), you can see that almost every plant that can be pollinated by honeybees can be pollinated by a Stingless bee or a Solitary Bee or another insect. So, whilst their could be a mass die off of crops, and a worldwide famine (especially affecting the Americas, Africa, Europe and Australia/NZ), we would probably also see a worldwide effort to replace the honeybee populations with other species of bee or maybe even other kinds of insect pollinators (butterflies, moths,beetles/ants to a limited extent etc). If it ever looks like the population is declining to a point where it won't recover, the world will act very quickly, I doubt their would be as widespread effects in urbanized/rural areas. Wild habitats are a different story however. |
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| kusanagi | Jul 21 2017, 09:27 AM Post #10 |
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Adolescent
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Imagine if you will the death of grass, which was the subject of a well known disaster novel by Samuel Youd. Cereals and pasture grasses going extinct because of a human accident or doomsday device would inevitably crash human populations the world over. Even if advanced human civilisation without grass is theoretically possible, in practice we don't. Domesticated corn was and still is important even in South America where tubers and quinoa were historically important - there is no civilisation without the grasses. |
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| Rodlox | Jul 21 2017, 09:30 AM Post #11 |
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Superhuman
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thanks for the book rec, but that's naught to do with the thread. |
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| kusanagi | Jul 21 2017, 10:21 AM Post #12 |
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Adolescent
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The domino effects from an extinction of a species used by man are perfectly in line with the thread. It is a better example of a human catastrophe than just the extinction of bananas which are nonessential for human existence as most people recognise it. Edited by kusanagi, Jul 21 2017, 10:22 AM.
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| Dragonthunders | Jul 21 2017, 11:55 AM Post #13 |
The ethereal archosaur in blue
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I can see that it has relevance to a wider view on the subject of the impact of the disappearance of certain species, however, was it necessary to revive this specific topic to talk about it? You could have created a new topic, maybe linked what inspired you and talk about it extensively. This topic has been dead for almost 1 year, and is aimed at discussing the impact of the disappearance of 2 specific organisms. Also, I understand that you want to give your points of view and these really welcome as I see, but please try to look at how long each topic has been discussed, it seems inappropriate to revive topics that have not been active for years to give a point. If you think there is something interesting in a discussion that has been inactive for 1 or more years you have the freedom to create a new topic. |
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