CES - Pollination Tool Kit: Key Points

These "key messages" are a set of selected facts about pollination that have been written in a manner to appeal to a general audience. You may want to pick and choose from these statements as appropriate for your audience and topic, or use them as a guide for your presentation.

General

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Many people think only of allergies when they hear the word pollen. But pollination — the transfer of pollen grains to fertilize the seed-producing ovaries of flowers — is an essential part of a healthy ecosystem. Over 100,000 invertebrate species, including bees, moths, butterflies, beetles, and flies serve as pollinators, as do at least 1,035 species of vertebrates, including birds, mammals, and reptiles (7).

Economic Benefits

•	Pollinators play a significant role in the production of over 150 food crops in the United States — among them apples, alfalfa, almonds, blueberries, cranberries, kiwis, melons, pears, plums, and squash (2,6).
•	In the United States, the annual benefit of managed honeybees to consumers is estimated at $1.6 billion when they supplement the services provided by native pollinators. When native pollinators are not available to service crops, the value of managed honeybees rises to $8.3 billion. The annual value of all other pollinators to US agriculture is estimated between $4.1 and $6.7 billion (7,8).
•	The southeastern blueberry bee illustrates the economic significance of native pollinators. In one year, a single bee visits about 50,000 blueberry flowers, producing over 6,000 marketable blueberries (2).

Pollinator Declines

•	Many species of wild pollinators are in decline. Disruptions of localized pollination systems, and declines of certain species of pollinators, have been reported on every continent except Antarctica (5).
•	Since 1945, the number of managed honeybee colonies in the United States has decreased by half. The problem stems largely from recently introduced diseases and pesticide poisonings, but invasion by Africanized honeybees has had an additional impact. This decline highlights the danger of over reliance on a single species, such as the honeybee, for pollination (1,9).
•	Habitat loss and fragmentation are two of the greatest threats to native pollinators. Food supply and nesting areas of many pollinating organisms are jeopardized when wild lands are converted to domestic uses such as housing, suburban development, agriculture, or pasture (3,5).
•	Pesticides also pose a major threat to insect pollinators. However, changes in the type and timing of pesticide use, avoidance of overspray, better regulation, and organic agricultural methods can reduce pollinator mortality rates (4,6).
•	Further research is necessary to improve the understanding of pollination dynamics and the consequences of pollinator decline. Specifically, we need to know more about the effects on wild pollinators of pesticides, grazing, logging, and urban sprawl; the significance of diminishing pollinator populations and the potential for cascading extinction; and the identification of economically important plant-pollinator relationships (5).

Sources

1.	Allen-Wardell, G. et al. 1998. "The Potential Consequences of Pollinator Declines on the Conservation of Biodiversity and Stability of Food Crop Yields," Conservation Biology 12: 8–17.
2.	Cane, J.H. 1997. "Lifetime Monetary Value of Individual Pollinators: The Bee Habropoda laboriosa at Rabbiteye Blueberry (Vaccinium ashei Reade)," Acta Horticulturae 446: 67–70.
3.	Groom, M.J. 1998. "Allee Effects Limit Population Viability of an Annual Plant," American Naturalist 151(6): 487–496.
4.	Johansen, C.A. 1977. "Pesticides and Pollinators," Annual Review of Entomology 22: 177–192.
5.	Kearns, C.A., D.W. Inouye, and N. Waser. 1998. "Endangered Mutualisms: The Conservation of Plant-Pollinator Interactions," Annual Review of Ecology and Systematics 29: 83–112.
6.	Kevan, P.G. 1975. "Pollination and Environmental Conservation," Environmental Conservation 2(4): 293–297.
7.	Nabhan, G.P., and S.L. Buchmann. 1997. "Services Provided by Pollinators," in Nature's Services, G. Daily ed. Washington D.C.: Island Press, pp. 133–150.
8.	Southwick, E.E., and L. Southwick Jr. 1992. "Estimating the Economic Value of Honey Bees as Agricultural Pollinators in the United States," Economic Entomology 85(3): 621–633.
9.	Watanabe, M.E. 1994. "Pollination Worries Rise as Honey Bees Decline," Science 265(26 August 1994): 1170.