Each pollinator carries pollen picked up from the last flower it visited and can cross-pollinate the next unpollinated flower it reaches. Bioengineering raises three traits at once: sensory range for finding flowers, flight speed, and a resilience factor that blunts the damage heat/drought stress does to success rate — mirroring real research goals for engineered pollinators.
E = enhancement level (0-1), S = environmental stress (0-1)
R_sensor = R0 · (1 + 0.9·E)
v_flight = v0 · (1 + 0.6·E) · (1 − 0.5·S·(1 − 0.7·E))
p_success = clamp(0.35 + 0.45·E − 0.55·S·(1 − 0.7·E), 0, 1)
on contact with unpollinated flower while carrying pollen:
pollinate if random() < p_success
- Swarm size — number of active pollinator agents foraging the field.
- Enhancement level — blends natural-insect traits toward bioengineered traits (range, speed, stress resilience).
- Environmental stress — heat/drought pressure; natural pollinators lose far more efficiency than enhanced ones.
- Reset field — clears all flowers back to unpollinated and restarts agents.
Real programs pursuing this (engineered bee strains, micro-drone pollinators) aim precisely at this trade space: wider sensing, faster coverage and steadier performance under climate stress than wild pollinator populations currently achieve.