Status of Pollinators in North America (2007) / Chapter Skim
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The extent to which the committee could discuss different pollinator species in different regions depended largely on the availability of data, as the amount and quality of evidence vary widely for different animal groups. For most North American pollinator species, long-term population data are lacking and knowledge of their basic ecology is incomplete.
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The first section of this summary addresses the status, causes of decline, consequences of decline, monitoring needs of managed pollinators, potential steps for managed pollinators' conservation and restoration, and the committee's recommendations (some in abbreviated form)
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Among the various pollinator groups, evidence for decline in North America is most compelling for the honey bee, Apis mellifera. Honey bees enable the production of no fewer than 90 commercially grown crops, and beekeeping is a large commercial industry that leases honey bee colonies for pollination services across the continent.
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The committee specifically recommends that NASS: • Refine its assessment of honey bee abundance, specifically by collecting data annually, eliminating double-counting, recording pollination services, and monitoring winter losses. • Collect commercial honey bee pollination data, including crops pollinated and leasing fees, from beekeepers and from crop growers.
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The development of management protocols for wild species and the management of agricultural landscapes to sustain wild pollinator populations can create alternatives to honey bees as pollinator demands rise and shortages become likely. Recommendation: The USDA-ARS should: • Create research entomology positions in its fruit and vegetable laboratories in geographically diverse regions of the United States to develop new non-Apis pollinators and establish protocols for management.
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This private-sector effort could complement federally funded basic research efforts and promote translational research.2 Consequences of Decline Findings: Managed pollinator decline and rising cost of pest control could increase pollinator rental fees. Among the most conspicuous, demonstrable consequences of changing pollinator status is the rising cost of pest control in bee husbandry that has attended mite infestations of managed populations.
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However, these technologies have not been widely adopted, and there is a pressing need for translational research to synthesize commercially viable practices from the results of basic research. As noted, USDA's intramural research and competitive grant programs should expand efforts to use state-of-the-art scientific knowledge to encourage innovative and commercially viable approaches to protecting honey bee health.
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Definitive causes of decline or factors that contribute to decline in species with demonstrable changes in population status could be assigned in only a few cases. A major cause of decline in native bumble bees appears to be recently introduced nonnative protozoan parasites, including Nosema bombi and Crithidia bombi, probably from commercial bumble bees imported from Europe for greenhouse pollination.
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Pollinator-monitoring programs in Europe (for example, the Survey of Wild Bees in Belgium and France and the European Union's Assessing LargeScale Risks for Biodiversity with Tested Methods project) have effectively documented declines in pollinator abundance, but there is no comparable U.S.
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Recommendation: Because of the importance of pollination as an ecosystem service in both agricultural and natural ecosystems, the National Science Foundation and USDA should recognize pollination as a cross-cutting theme in their competitive grant programs. Representative areas where research is needed include identification of causes and consequences of pollinator decline, ecology, restoration, conservation, and management of pollinators and pollination services, and establishment of Small Business Innovation Research programs to promote technology transfer to address the health and sustainability of commercially managed pollinators.
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offices should provide lists of scientifically tested and approved pollinator-friendly practices to farmers participating in USDA cost share programs (the Wildlife Habitat Incentives Program and the Environmental Quality Incentives Program) , land retirement programs (the Conservation Reserve Program [CRP]
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Thus, it might be difficult to present sufficient evidence to list them. Recommendation: Congress should not consider any ESA amendment that would create additional barriers to listing pollinator species as endangered.
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