A quarter of all known bee species haven't been seen since the 1990s | New Scientist
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The number of bee species appears to have declined sharply in the past 30 years, which could mean many types of bee are extinct or so rare that no one has recording a sighting

They found that there were a quarter fewer species reported between 2006 and 2015, as compared with the records we have from before 1990.
The decline is especially alarming considering the number of bee records in this database has increased by around 55 per cent since 2000, so it isn’t down to a lack of observations.

It may not necessarily mean unrecorded bee species are extinct, but they are now rare enough that people who tend to report bee sightings aren’t encountering them.
The destruction of natural habitats, heavy use of pesticides and climate change could explain this decline in species richness, says Zattara.
“We are producing more food to feed our growing population,” says Zattara. “[We are] using highly economically convenient ways to grow single-culture crops, which is removing a lot of the bees’ natural habitat.”

  • CoralMarks [he/him]
    ·
    4 years ago

    This is all so tragic how we have been destroying the livelihoods of these busy workers who are freely without asking for much are helping us out and doing crucial tasks.

    Also this reminded me of this long-term study done in Germany on the general biomass of flying insects and the results were just shocking. Here is an article on that.

    The important parts:

    spoiler

    In October 2017, a long-term study by the Entomological Society Krefeld hit like a bomb: Within thirty years, the number of flying insects in Germany was said to have decreased by three quarters.
    [...]
    Both on meadows and in forests, the number of species decreased by about one third during the study period. Their total mass also decreased, especially in grasslands, by 67 percent. In the forests it shrank by about 40 percent. According to the researchers, the decline is presumably related to agriculture. "We did not expect such a decline to be observed over only a decade," Weisser said. "This is frightening, but it fits into the picture that more and more studies are drawing.

    We are destroying our very foundations necessary to even survive.

    But at least not to make this all doomer like, there is an effort to somewhat reverse the course of events:

    Author Seibold emphasised that it was not enough just to maintain individual areas and retreats to combat insect decline. "To stop the decline, we need [...] greater coordination and coordination at regional and national levels," he said.
    "The study shows us that agriculture must be part of the solution," Joachim Rukwied, President of the Farmers' Association, argued. "Hardly any other sector is as dependent on the pollination performance of bees and insects as we are." He added that the Farmers' Association was backing "cooperative nature conservation." As an example he gave an initiative to give some arable areas back to nature: "This year we [voluntarily] created flower strips nationwide as a habitat for insects with a length of over 230,000 kilometres - a five-metre-wide strip that extends almost six times around the world."
    Nature conservationists, however, are calling above all for a ban on insecticides - such as neonicotinoids, which France has already banned, or the herbicide glyphosate. Glyphosate has been criticized for harming biodiversity. Meanwhile, experts are debating whether such bans are really effective. There is also a danger that, after a ban, farmers will resort to other pesticides that are no less dangerous.