Global pollinator declines: trends, impacts and drivers

Potts, Simon G.; Biesmeijer, Jacobus C.; Kremen, Claire; Neumann, Peter; Schweiger, Oliver; Kunin, William E.

doi:10.1016/j.tree.2010.01.007

Cited by 4,691 publications

(3,893 citation statements)

References 94 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

3,688

Contrasting

Unclassified

148

Order By: Relevance

“…Other major drivers are thought to include habitat change and loss (reviewed in Potts et al . 2010), and more recently, pesticides (Desneux, Decourtye & Delpuech 2007; Gill, Ramos‐Rodriguez & Raine 2012; Whitehorn et al . 2012; Williamson & Wright 2013).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

A sting in the spit: widespread cross‐infection of multipleRNAviruses across wild and managed bees

McMahon

Fürst

Caspar

et al. 2015

Journal of Animal Ecology

241

285

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Summary Declining populations of bee pollinators are a cause of concern, with major repercussions for biodiversity loss and food security. RNA viruses associated with honeybees represent a potential threat to other insect pollinators, but the extent of this threat is poorly understood.This study aims to attain a detailed understanding of the current and ongoing risk of emerging infectious disease (EID) transmission between managed and wild pollinator species across a wide range of RNA viruses.Within a structured large‐scale national survey across 26 independent sites, we quantify the prevalence and pathogen loads of multiple RNA viruses in co‐occurring managed honeybee (Apis mellifera) and wild bumblebee (Bombus spp.) populations. We then construct models that compare virus prevalence between wild and managed pollinators.Multiple RNA viruses associated with honeybees are widespread in sympatric wild bumblebee populations. Virus prevalence in honeybees is a significant predictor of virus prevalence in bumblebees, but we remain cautious in speculating over the principle direction of pathogen transmission. We demonstrate species‐specific differences in prevalence, indicating significant variation in disease susceptibility or tolerance. Pathogen loads within individual bumblebees may be high and in the case of at least one RNA virus, prevalence is higher in wild bumblebees than in managed honeybee populations.Our findings indicate widespread transmission of RNA viruses between managed and wild bee pollinators, pointing to an interconnected network of potential disease pressures within and among pollinator species. In the context of the biodiversity crisis, our study emphasizes the importance of targeting a wide range of pathogens and defining host associations when considering potential drivers of population decline.

show abstract

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…2006; Goulson, Lye & Darvill 2008; Brown & Paxton 2009; Williams & Osborne 2009; Potts et al . 2010; Vanbergen et al . 2013).…”

Section: Introductionunclassified

A sting in the spit: widespread cross‐infection of multipleRNAviruses across wild and managed bees

McMahon

Fürst

Caspar

et al. 2015

Journal of Animal Ecology

241

285

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…This is particularly important for organisms like the honeybee ( Apis mellifera L.), which, through the pollination service it provides, plays a critical role in ecosystem functioning and in food production for humanity. The honeybee is under pressure worldwide due to multiple factors, ranging from emergent parasites and pathogens, and the overuse of agrochemicals, to the less publicized introgressive hybridization mediated by human management (reviewed by Potts et al., 2010; van Engelsdorp & Meixner, 2010). In a global world, where the circulation of commercial queens and package honeybees occurs at a rapid pace, and at large scale, reliable tools for monitoring genetic diversity are becoming indispensable.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Developing reduced SNP assays from whole‐genome sequence data to estimate introgression in an organism with complex genetic patterns, the Iberian honeybee (Apis mellifera iberiensis)

Henriques

Parejo

Vignal

et al. 2018

Evolutionary Applications

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The most important managed pollinator, the honeybee (Apis mellifera L.), has been subject to a growing number of threats. In western Europe, one such threat is large‐scale introductions of commercial strains (C‐lineage ancestry), which is leading to introgressive hybridization and even the local extinction of native honeybee populations (M‐lineage ancestry). Here, we developed reduced assays of highly informative SNPs from 176 whole genomes to estimate C‐lineage introgression in the most diverse and evolutionarily complex subspecies in Europe, the Iberian honeybee (Apis mellifera iberiensis). We started by evaluating the effects of sample size and sampling a geographically restricted area on the number of highly informative SNPs. We demonstrated that a bias in the number of fixed SNPs (FST = 1) is introduced when the sample size is small (N ≤ 10) and when sampling only captures a small fraction of a population's genetic diversity. These results underscore the importance of having a representative sample when developing reliable reduced SNP assays for organisms with complex genetic patterns. We used a training data set to design four independent SNP assays selected from pairwise FST between the Iberian and C‐lineage honeybees. The designed assays, which were validated in holdout and simulated hybrid data sets, proved to be highly accurate and can be readily used for monitoring populations not only in the native range of A. m. iberiensis in Iberia but also in the introduced range in the Balearic islands, Macaronesia and South America, in a time‐ and cost‐effective manner. While our approach used the Iberian honeybee as model system, it has a high value in a wide range of scenarios for the monitoring and conservation of potentially hybridized domestic and wildlife populations.

show abstract

“…Bees are key providers of pollination services, which are vital for crop production and food security and the persistence of many wild plants (Klein et al., 2007; Ollerton, Winfree, & Tarrant, 2011). However, many bee species are threatened by land‐use intensification and human disturbance of natural habitats (Ollerton, Erenler, Edwards, & Crockett, 2014; Potts et al., 2010). Land‐use change, such as large‐scale conversion of seminatural habitats to human‐dominated landscapes, can greatly impact bee communities through reduced floral resources (Forrest, Thorp, Kremen, & Williams, 2015) and nesting sites (Shuler, Roulston, & Farris, 2005).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Impact of human disturbance on bee pollinator communities in savanna and agricultural sites in Burkina Faso, West Africa

Stein

Stenchly

Coulibaly

et al. 2018

Ecology and Evolution

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

All over the world, pollinators are threatened by land‐use change involving degradation of seminatural habitats or conversion into agricultural land. Such disturbance often leads to lowered pollinator abundance and/or diversity, which might reduce crop yield in adjacent agricultural areas. For West Africa, changes in bee communities across disturbance gradients from savanna to agricultural land are mainly unknown. In this study, we monitored for the impact of human disturbance on bee communities in savanna and crop fields. We chose three savanna areas of varying disturbance intensity (low, medium, and high) in the South Sudanian zone of Burkina Faso, based on land‐use/land cover data via Landsat images, and selected nearby cotton and sesame fields. During 21 months covering two rainy and two dry seasons in 2014 and 2015, we captured bees using pan traps. Spatial and temporal patterns of bee species abundance, richness, evenness and community structure were assessed. In total, 35,469 bee specimens were caught on 12 savanna sites and 22 fields, comprising 97 species of 32 genera. Bee abundance was highest at intermediate disturbance in the rainy season. Species richness and evenness did not differ significantly. Bee communities at medium and highly disturbed savanna sites comprised only subsets of those at low disturbed sites. An across‐habitat spillover of bees (mostly abundant social bee species) from savanna into crop fields was observed during the rainy season when crops are mass‐flowering, whereas most savanna plants are not in bloom. Despite disturbance intensification, our findings suggest that wild bee communities can persist in anthropogenic landscapes and that some species even benefitted disproportionally. West African areas of crop production such as for cotton and sesame may serve as important food resources for bee species in times when resources in the savanna are scarce and receive at the same time considerable pollination service.

show abstract

Global pollinator declines: trends, impacts and drivers

Cited by 4,691 publications

References 94 publications

A sting in the spit: widespread cross‐infection of multipleRNAviruses across wild and managed bees

A sting in the spit: widespread cross‐infection of multipleRNAviruses across wild and managed bees

Developing reduced SNP assays from whole‐genome sequence data to estimate introgression in an organism with complex genetic patterns, the Iberian honeybee (Apis mellifera iberiensis)

Impact of human disturbance on bee pollinator communities in savanna and agricultural sites in Burkina Faso, West Africa

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About