Pollination is a mutualism: insects get a nectar/pollen meal, and in the process they carry pollen grains between flowers, letting plants reproduce sexually without moving from the spot.
pollination event when insect & flower distance < contact radius, P ~ contactProb
- Foraging insects — bees, hoverflies and butterflies moving between flowers in search of nectar and pollen.
- Flowering plants — individual blooms offering a nectar reward in exchange for pollen transfer.
- Contact probability — chance that a close insect-flower encounter actually results in successful pollen transfer.
- Insect flight speed — how fast pollinators move between flowers, trading thoroughness for coverage.
Roughly a third of global food crop production depends on animal pollination, which is why colony collapse disorder and wild-pollinator decline are treated as agricultural, not just ecological, emergencies.