Honey Bees show impact of biodiversity loss

I thought I was going to write a straightforward piece about the dwindling populations of bees as an important pollinator and the impact of this on agriculture and other industries. In researching this I soon discovered that critical lesson that the conclusions that you draw from looking through a microscope is often very different when you look at the same evidence but through a telescope. It is not that the dire stories of declining bee populations are false; they just did not represent the global picture.

I like many others assumed that the rapid decline of honeybees in certain parts of the world was due to a phenomenon called "colony collapse disorder" (CCD). Environmentalists have for the last decade made the assumption that this rapid collapse in bee populations has been caused by harmful pesticides and herbicides. To date, no scientific evidence directly supporting this conclusion has emerged although there is evidence that a new class of insecticide known as neonicotinoids are being taken up by bees. It turns out that there are a number of other factors causing this decline and it is reasonable to assume that pesticides are one of the causes. We now know that there is a virus (known as IAPV) as well as funguses which are contributing factors to CCD.

There is also recent research that has shown (using Canada as the example) that the decline of bumble bees in that country is related to climate change - to quote from the study ".. a climate-driven mismatch between the times when flowers open and when bees emerge from hibernation is a more important factor." In addition the problem is compounded when crops that do not need bee pollinators (such as wheat, corn) are rotated due to a changing climate. However, having said all of that this decline or colony collapse disorder is only taking place in certain parts of the world.

It is true that there has been dramatic collapses in honey bee populations (as much as 60%) in parts of Europe and North America, giving rise to the colony collapse disorder. However, there is now strong evidence and as reported in the latest issue of Conservation that the global population of honey bees have risen by just over 45% since the 1960's. Not surprisingly, during the same time period the production of pollinator-dependent crops has quadrupled. According to this research most of this increase in the population of honey bees and production has taken place in South America, Turkey and China. In these countries and regions the production of pollinator-dependent crops (cardamom, melons, and cashews) has quadrupled over the past forty years and along with that the number of beehives.

So it seems that when looking through the telescope and on a global perspective it is not just funguses, viruses or changing temperatures that are affecting bee populations (often on a local scale) but put simply economic globalization and the world's growing appetite for melons, cashews, chocolate, and other luxury crops.

However, a pollinator global crisis does still loom. As much as honeybees and other pollinators have increased in population by over 45% and over the past forty years, this has to be looked at next to the global increase of flowing crops over the same period, which is a staggering 400%. Clearly wild bees and other pollinators are supporting these crops. There is genuine concern that as more land is converted to monocultures, wild bees and other pollinator's dependant on wild habitats could be wiped out.

All of this is important because protecting habitats is essential to preserving our planet's biodiversity. Over the past fifty years our population has more than doubled. During the same time period, the world lost 25 per cent of its land species, 28 per cent of marine life, and 29 per cent of freshwater species. This is the fastest and greatest rate of biodiversity loss since the extinction of the dinosaurs. The main cause is habitat destruction, which is destroying ecosystems. What environmentalists and conservationists now recognize is that biospheres will only survive if people, especially those who live near wild spaces, derive a greater benefit from preserving them than destroying them.