Managing urban areas for insect pollinators: As town and cities continue to grow how can land managers help insect pollinators in urban areas?

Insect pollinators are essential for food production and wild flower reproduction yet these important insects are declining in the UK and in other regions of the world. Multiple pressures including land use change, disease, climate change and agrochemicals affect pollinator populations and the services they provide. This has resulted in declining species richness in wild pollinator populations and local declines in abundance. Urban areas make up 9% of the land area in the UK and are growing. With the majority of the UK population living in urban areas there is huge pressure in these landscapes for plants and animals, including pollinators, to coexist. Therefore it is important that we manage our towns and cities favourably for insect pollinators

Developing European conservation and mitigation tools for pollination services: approaches of the STEP (Status and Trends of European Pollinators) project

Pollinating insects form a key component of European biodiversity, and provide a vital ecosystem service to crops and wild plants. There is growing evidence of declines in both wild and domesticated pollinators, and parallel declines in plants relying upon them. The STEP project (Status and Trends of European Pollinators, 2010-2015, www.stepproject.net) is documenting critical elements in the nature and extent of these declines, examining key functional traits associated with pollination deficits, and developing a Red List for some European pollinator groups. Together these activities are laying the groundwork for future pollinator monitoring programmes. STEP is also assessing the relative importance of potential drivers of pollinator declines, including climate change, habitat loss and fragmentation, agrochemicals, pathogens, alien species, light pollution, and their interactions. We are measuring the ecological and economic impacts of declining pollinator services and floral resources, including effects on wild plant populations, crop production and human nutrition. STEP is reviewing existing and potential mitigation options, and providing novel tests of their effectiveness across Europe. Our work is building upon existing and newly developed datasets and models, complemented by spatially-replicated campaigns of field research to fill gaps in current knowledge. Findings are being integrated into a policy-relevant framework to create evidence-based decision support tools. STEP is establishing communication links to a wide range of stakeholders across Europe and beyond, including policy makers, beekeepers, farmers, academics and the general public. Taken together, the STEP research programme aims to improve our understanding of the nature, causes, consequences and potential mitigation of declines in pollination services at local, national, continental and global scales

Combined stress from parasites, pesticides and lack of flowers drives bee declines

Bees are subject to numerous pressures in the modern world. The abundance and diversity of flowers has declined, bees are chronically exposed to cocktails of agrochemicals, and they are simultaneously exposed to novel parasites accidentally spread by humans. Climate change is likely to exacerbate these problems in the future. Stressors do not act in isolation; for example pesticide exposure can impair both detoxification mechanisms and immune responses, rendering bees more susceptible to parasites. It seems certain that chronic exposure to multiple, interacting stressors is driving honey bee colony losses and declines of wild pollinators, but such interactions are not addressed by current regulatory procedures and studying these interactions experimentally poses a major challenge. In the meantime, taking steps to reduce stress on bees would seem prudent; incorporating flower-rich habitat into farmland, reducing pesticide use through adopting more sustainable farming methods, and enforcing effective quarantine measures on bee movements are all practical measures that should be adopted. Effective monitoring of wild pollinator populations is urgently needed to inform management strategies into the future

Pollination services in the UK: how important are honeybees?

Pollination services are known to provide substantial benefits to human populations and agriculture in particular. Although many species are known to provide pollination services, honeybees (Apis mellifera) are often assumed to provide the majority of these services to agriculture. Using data from a range of secondary sources, this study assesses the importance of insect pollinated crops at regional and national scales and investigates the capacity of honeybees to provide optimal pollination services to UK agriculture. The findings indicate that insect pollinated crops have become increasingly important in UK crop agriculture and, as of 2007, accounted for 20% of UK cropland and 19% of total farmgate crop value. Analysis of honeybee hive numbers indicates that current UK populations are only capable of supplying 34% of pollination service demands even under favourable assumptions, falling from 70% in 1984. In spite of this decline, insect pollinated crop yields have risen by an average of 54% since 1984, casting doubt on long held beliefs that honeybees provide the majority of pollination services. Future land use and crop production patterns may further increase the role of pollination services to UK agriculture, highlighting the importance of measures aimed at maintaining both wild and managed species

Spatial Relation of Bumblebees (Hymenoptera-Apidae) with Host-Plant and their Conservation Issues: An Outlook from Urban Ecosystem of Kathmandu Valley, Nepal

Ecology and conservation status of bumblebee species remains poorly understood, especially in rapidly degrading urban ecosystems, which is important considering the role of bumblebees in the pollinations. We collected more than 200 bumblebee (Bombus spp.) specimens under six species in different parts of the Kathmandu valley (Kathmandu, Lalitpur, and Bhaktapur cities) in Nepal. The species of bumblebees were analyzed with their host plant types and the land use change using remote sensing and field observation data. We found that the bumblebees exert strong variation and were significantly affected by the families of the host plants and the nature of flowers (open and closed type) rather than colors and categories (invasive and noninvasive). We underline that the rapid habitat loss by changing land use in the study area can be a potential threat to the conservation of these important pollinators, and thus, need focused habitat conservation efforts

The weevil-watermilfoil interaction at different spatial scales: what we know and what we need to know

The North American weevil ( Euhrychiopsis lecontei (Dietz)) is being considered as a biological control agent for Eurasian watermilfoil ( Myriophyllum spicatum L.). This native insect damages watermilfoil plants and is frequently associated with declining watermilfoil population

Pollinators In Peril: A Systematic Status Review of North American and Hawaiian Native Bees

While the decline of European honeybees in the United States and beyond has been well publicized in recent years, the more than 4,000 species of native bees in North America and Hawaii have been much less documented. Although these native bees are not as well known as honeybees, they play a vital role in functioning ecosystems and also provide more than $3 billion dollars in fruit-pollination services each year just in the United States.For this first-of-its-kind analysis, the Center for Biological Diversity conducted a systematic review of the status of all 4,337 North American and Hawaiian native bees.For this report we assembled a list of all valid native bee species and their current conservation status as established by state, federal or independent researchers. We then conducted a comprehensive review of all literature on those species as well as records documenting their occurrence. From that research we identified those bees with sufficient data to assess their status, including current and historical range, behavioral observations and studies, arriving at the first comprehensive analysis of the status of North American and Hawaiian native bees.We also highlight five native solitary bee species that are seriously imperiled. These remarkable, underappreciated pollinators offer a snapshot of the threats driving the alarming declines in many native bee species — declines that must be reversed to save these irreplaceable native bees and the health of the ecosystems that depend on them

The macroeconomic cost of catastrophic pollinator declines

We develop a computable general equilibrium (CGE) approach to assess the macroeconomic impacts of productivity shocks due to catastrophic losses of pollination ecosystem services at global and regional scales. In most regions, producers of pollinator dependent crops end up benefiting because direct output losses are outweighed by increased prices, while non-agricultural sectors experience large adverse indirect impacts, resulting in overall losses whose magnitudes vary substantially. By comparison, partial equilibrium analyses tend to overstate the costs to agricultural producers, understate aggregate economy-wide losses, and overstate the impacts on consumers' welfare. Our results suggest an upper bound on global willingness to pay for agricultural pollination services of $127–$152 billion

Insect (Arthropoda: Insecta) Composition in the Diet of Ornate Box Turtles (Terrapene ornata ornata) in Two Western Illinois Sand Prairies, with a New State Record for Cyclocephala (Coleoptera: Scarabaeidae)

A study of fecal samples collected over a two-year period from juvenile ornate box turtles (Terrapene ornata ornata Agassiz) revealed diets consisting of six orders of insects representing 19 families. Turtles were reared in captivity from eggs harvested from local, wild populations, and released at two remnant prairies. Identifiable insect fragments were found in 94% of samples in 2013 (n=33) and 96% in 2014 (n=25). Frequency of occurrence of insects in turtle feces is similar to results reported in previous studies of midwestern Terrapene species. A comparison of insect composition presented no significant difference between release sites. There is no significant difference in consumed insect species between turtles released into or outside of a fenced enclosure at the same site. Specimens of Cyclocephala longula LeConte collected during this study represent a new state record for Illinois