Who needs pollinators?

by Ann Harman, Summer 2009

	Butterflies and other insects, and well as birds and some mammals, serve as pollinators along with bees. ©Pam Owen.

Are pollinators in trouble? Why should we care?

Almost every living thing—plant or animal—depends on pollination. It took humans a long time to figure out all the fine details of pollination, and now we're seeing trouble in the populations the pollinators we depend on most for our food—bees.

Although we know that hand pollination of dates and figs took place starting more than 2,000 years ago, it took the farming practices developed in the late 1800s and early 1900s an important topic for research. Not only did farmers start keeping beehives near their crops, but with the evolution of farming, bees eventually began to be transported from crop to crop across the country as needed during the pollination season.

This keeping and transporting of bees for our purposes worked well for a long time. Then, several years ago, beekeepers became aware that entire bee colonies were suddenly disappearing. While such disappearances have occurred throughout the history of apiculture (beekeeping), the term "colony collapse disorder" was first applied to the drastic rise in the number of disappearances of Western honey bee colonies in North America in late 2006. These disappearances awoke people around the world to the plight of honey bees and subsequently other pollinators.

Why should we care that bees are disappearing? Pollinators are critical to reproduction of most plants. Not only are they integral to the stability of natural ecosystems, but almost 80 percent of the world's crop plants require pollination, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Natural Resources Conservation Service. NRCS estimates the annual value of insect pollinated crops in the U.S. at $20 billion. As the NRCS website notes, "new language in the 2008 Farm Bill makes pollinators and their habitat a priority for every USDA land manager and conservationist."

The most well-known pollinators are honey bees, but other animals are hard at work, too, helping plants reproduce. While we enjoy the Star Wars antics of humming birds, we also need to thank them for their role in pollination. They are joined by other birds, butterflies, beetles, mosquitoes, and bats in this task.

What do you need to be a good pollinator? Fuzz, fur, hair and the ability to move around. Flying about is especially helpful. It does not matter what time of day—or night—a pollinator chooses to move around. Something will be blooming that benefits from pollination.

In the list of pollinators, human beings are not mentioned, but we do pollination—in a deliberate sense. Just look in your mailbox during January when the seed and nursery catalogs are arriving. There are always new varieties and cultivars offered. The developers and growers of these new offerings have been busy either pollinating or controlling the pollination of the plants that you will be choosing for your garden.

We should not also ignore the plants' role in the pollination process. They have evolved ways to lure specific pollinators to specific plant species over the millions of years that plants and animals have existed together.

Are pollinators in trouble? The answer depends on whom you ask. But the general consensus is, "yes." Why are they in trouble? Look around you as you drive through suburbia, cities, towns, and farmland. What do you see? What do you not see? How is the change from forest to farm to commercial and residential development affecting biodiversity—the variety of species you see—through loss of habitat and through pollution?

We have drifted away from having a variety of habitats for pollinators into a world of monocultures. And these monocultures do not necessarily mean endless fields of grain. Look at the endless green lawns of suburbia and not a sheep in sight. George Washington would have thought those sheepless lawns quite strange, and today's ecologists consider them "green deserts" because of the lack of natural habitat they offer.

As humans, we are learning more every day about the intricate, symbiotic relationship that pollinators have with plants. The more we know about pollinators, the more likely we are to appreciate their role and to help protect them.

Ann Harman, international consultant in apiculture and a resident of Rappahannock County, will talk about the critical role of pollinators at the Rappahannock County Public Library on Tuesday, July 28, 2009, at 7:00 p.m. Bring your questions and find out what you can to do help our pollinators maintain their important role in our ecosystems and our daily lives.

The program, sponsored by the Rappahannock League for Environmental Protection's Biodiversity Task Force, is free. For more information, contact Pam Owen at biodiversity@RLEP.org or 540-317-1449.