[PCA] Fwd: ​Wild bee decline threatens US crop production, national bee map shows farmland at risk

[De Angelis, Patricia]

This article may be of interest and will hopefully spur greater effort on
planting more natives in the crop margins:

From:
University of Vermont. "Wild bee decline threatens US crop production:
Following Obama's call for pollinator assessment, first-ever national bee
map shows much farmland at risk." ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 21 December
2015. <www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/12/151221193528.htm>.

Science News
from research organizations
------------------------------
​​
Wild bee decline threatens US crop productionFollowing Obama's call for
pollinator assessment, first-ever national bee map shows much farmland at
riskDate:December 21, 2015Source:University of VermontSummary:The first
national study to map US wild bees suggests they're disappearing in many of
the country's most important farmlands. If losses of these pollinators
continue, the new nationwide assessment indicates that farmers will face
increasing costs -- and that the problem may even destabilize the nation's
crop production.
FULL STORY
------------------------------
A new study of wild bees identifies 139 counties in key agricultural
regions of California, the Pacific Northwest, the upper Midwest and Great
Plains, west Texas, and the southern Mississippi River valley that have the
most worrisome mismatch between falling wild bee supply and rising crop
pollination demand. The study and map were published in the Proceedings of
the National Academy of Sciences, and led by scientists at the University
of Vermont.
*Credit: PNAS*

The first national study to map U.S. wild bees suggests they're
disappearing in many of the country's most important farmlands--including
California's Central Valley, the Midwest's corn belt, and the Mississippi
River valley.

If losses of these crucial pollinators continue, the new nationwide
assessment indicates that farmers will face increasing costs--and that the
problem may even destabilize the nation's crop production.

The findings were published December 21 in the *Proceedings of the National
Academy of Sciences*.

The research team, led by Insu Koh at the University of Vermont, estimates
that wild bee abundance between 2008 and 2013 declined in 23% of the
contiguous U.S. The study also shows that 39% of US croplands that depend
on pollinators--from apple orchards to pumpkin patches--face a threatening
mismatch between rising demand for pollination and a falling supply of wild
bees.

In June of 2014, the White House issued a presidential memorandum warning
that "over the past few decades, there has been a significant loss of
pollinators, including honey bees, native bees, birds, bats, and
butterflies." The memo noted the multi-billion dollar contribution of
pollinators to the US economy--and called for a national assessment of wild
pollinators and their habitats.

"Until this study, we didn't have a national mapped picture about the
status of wild bees and their impacts on pollination," says Koh, a
researcher at UVM's Gund Institute for Ecological Economics--even though
each year more than $3 billion of the US agricultural economy depends on
the pollination services of native pollinators like wild bees.

The report that followed the White House memo called for seven million
acres of land to be protected as pollinator habitat over the next five
years. "It's clear that pollinators are in trouble," says Taylor Ricketts,
the senior author on the new study and director of UVM's Gund Institute.
"But what's been less clear is where they are in the most trouble--and
where their decline will have the most consequence for farms and food."

"Now we have a map of the hotspots," adds Koh. "It's the first spatial
portrait of pollinator status and impacts in the U.S.,"--and a tool that
the researchers hope will help protect wild bees and pinpoint habitat
restoration efforts.

The new study identifies 139 counties in key agricultural regions of
California, the Pacific Northwest, the upper Midwest and Great Plains, west
Texas, and the southern Mississippi River valley that have the most
worrisome mismatch between falling wild bee supply and rising crop
pollination demand. These counties tend to be places that grow specialty
crops--like almonds, blueberries and apples--that are highly dependent on
pollinators. Or they are counties that grow less dependent crops--like
soybeans, canola and cotton--in very large quantities.

Of particular concern, the study shows that some of the crops most
dependent on pollinators--including pumpkins, watermelons, pears, peaches,
plums, apples and blueberries--have the strongest pollination mismatch,
with a simultaneous drop in wild bee supply and increase in pollination
demand. "These are the crops most likely to run into pollination trouble,"
says Taylor Ricketts, "whether that's increased costs for managed
pollinators, or even destabilized yields."

Pesticides, climate change, and diseases threaten wild bees--but the new
study also shows that their decline may be caused by the conversion of bee
habitat into cropland. In eleven key states where the new study shows bees
in decline, the amount of land tilled to grow corn spiked by two hundred
percent in five years--replacing grasslands and pastures that once
supported bee populations. "These results reinforce recent evidence that
increased demand for corn in biofuel production has intensified threats to
natural habitats in corn-growing regions," the new study notes.

"By highlighting regions with loss of habitat for wild bees, government
agencies and private organizations can focus their efforts at the national,
regional, and state scales to support these important pollinators for more
sustainable agricultural and natural landscapes," says Michigan State
University's Rufus Isaacs, one of the co-authors on the study and leader of
the Integrated Crop Pollination Project, a USDA-funded effort that
supported the new research.

Over the last decade, honeybee keepers have lost many colonies and have
struggled to keep up with rising demand for commercial pollination
services, pushing up costs for farmers. "When sufficient habitat exists,
wild bees are already contributing the majority of pollination for some
crops. Even around managed pollinators, wild bees complement pollination in
ways that can increase crop yields," says Neal Williams, a co-author on the
study from the University of California, Davis.

"Most people can think of one or two types of bee, but there are 4,000
species in the U.S. alone," says Taylor Ricketts, Gund Professor in UVM's
Rubenstein School of Environment and Natural Resources. "Wild bees are a
precious natural resource we should celebrate and protect. If managed with
care, they can help us continue to produce billions of dollars in
agricultural income and a wonderful diversity of nutritious food."

The team of seven researchers--from UVM, Franklin and Marshall College,
University of California at Davis, and Michigan State University--created
the new maps by first identifying forty-five land-use types from two
federal land databases, including both croplands and natural habitats. Then
they gathered detailed input from fourteen experts on bee ecology about
each type of land--and how suitable it was for providing wild bees with
nesting and food resources.

Averaging the experts' input and levels of certainty, the scientists built
a bee habitat model that predicts the relative abundance of wild bees for
every area of the contiguous United States, based on their quality for
nesting and feeding from flowers. Finally, the team checked and validated
their model against bee collections and field observations in many actual
landscapes.

The model's confidence is greatest in agricultural areas with declining
bees, matching both the consensus of the experts' opinion and available
field data. However, the study also outlines several regions with greater
uncertainty about bee populations. This knowledge can direct future
research, especially in farming areas where need for pollination is high.

"We can now predict which areas are suffering the biggest declines of wild
bee abundance," Insu Koh says, "and identify those areas, with low bee
supply and high bee demand, that are the top priority for conservation."
------------------------------

*Story Source:*

The above post is reprinted from materials
<http://www.uvm.edu/~uvmpr/?Page=news&storyID=22053&category=four_sq> provided
by *University of Vermont* <http://www.uvm.edu/>. The original item was
written by Joshua E. Brown. *Note: Materials may be edited for content and
length.*
------------------------------

*Journal Reference*:

   1. Insu Koh, Eric Lonsdorf, Neal Williams, Claire Brittain, Rufus
   Isaacs, Jason Gibbs and Taylor Ricketts. *Modeling the Status, Trends,
   and Impacts of Wild Bee Abundance in the United States*. *Proceedings of
   the National Academy of Sciences*, December 2015 DOI:
   10.1073/pnas.1517685113 <http://dx.doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1517685113>
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