[Pollinator] The Landscape-Scale Ecology of Pollinators and Pollination: Mechanisms, Patterns

[Ladadams at aol.com]

Ecological Society of America Annual Meeting, Organized Oral Session 4  
“The Landscape-Scale Ecology of Pollinators and Pollination: Mechanisms,  
Patterns, and Processes” 
Monday, Aug. 4, 2008, 1:30-5:30 p.m., 202C Midwest Airlines Center 
Newswise — Most of the world’s plant species rely on animals to transfer  
their pollen to other plants. The undisputed queen of these animal pollinators  
is the bee, made up of about 30,000 species worldwide, whose daily flights aid 
 in the reproduction of more than half of the world’s flowering plants. In 
recent  years, however, an unprecedented and unexplained decline in bee 
populations  across the U.S. and Europe has placed the health of ecosystems and the  
sustainability of crops in peril.  
In an oral session at the Annual Meeting of the Ecological Society of  
America, an interdisciplinary group of scientists will explore the problem of  bee 
habitat loss at a broad scale to determine what can be done to preserve bees  
in their native habitats. The session, titled “The Landscape-Scale Ecology of  
Pollinators and Pollination,” will include scientists in the fields of 
computer  science, mathematics and ecology from institutions in the U.S., Europe and 
Asia.  
The most recent and headline-capturing phenomenon, known as colony collapse  
disorder, is characterized by the disappearance of adult honeybees from  
beekeeper hives, leaving behind bee larvae with no caretakers. The bee decline  is 
particularly unnerving for farmers because an estimated 80 percent of all  
food crops are pollinated by honeybees and their wild cousins. Stymied  
scientists have proposed a host of reasons for managed honeybee declines,  including 
climate change, parasites, diseases, overexposure to pesticides and  loss of 
suitable habitat; most researchers believe that a combination of these  factors 
is responsible. In this oral session, scientists turn their attention to  
native, wild bees to determine whether they are undergoing – or might undergo –  
the same decline.  
One of the session’s organizers, Neal Williams of Bryn Mawr College, hopes  
that the session will result in the synthesis of ideas from many disciplines.  “
We want to know: Can we look at landscape models in a predictive way and use  
those to inform us about natural populations and how they deliver pollinator  
services to crops?” he asks.  
Rachael Winfree of Rutgers University is particularly interested in the  
health of native bees as “biological insurance” against the decline of  
honeybees. “Over half of the world’s native plants require animal pollinators,  and 
most of those are bees,” she says. “Native pollinators are serving as a  backup 
plan for the honeybee.” 
Winfree will present a study that combines data from over 50 published  
studies of bee population sizes and diversity. She found that in areas of  extreme 
fragmentation due to human development, animal grazing, logging and crop  
fields, bee populations were smaller and the number of bee species was lower  than 
in natural or minimally disturbed areas.  
Scientists are also using technological methods to further understand bee  
communities. Daniel Chalk, a graduate student at the University of Exeter in the 
 United Kingdom, used an artificial intelligence computer model to predict 
flight  patterns of wild bumblebees. His model is useful because it can predict 
how bees  would forage, or look for food resources, in different landscapes.  
“Crucially, our model is able to predict the behavior of bees in larger-scale 
 foraging environments, where the foraging patches can be thought of as large 
 fields of crops,” says Chalk. His model, he says, could help scientists  
understand how land disturbance caused by humans affects bee species richness  
and density.  
Williams used an experimental approach to understand the landscape-scale  
ecology of native bumblebees. He and his colleagues established 38 bee colonies  
across central California, ranging from undisturbed chaparral to organic and  
conventional farms. During the course of the summer months, they found that 
the  further a colony was from natural areas, the fewer worker bees it 
sustained.  Williams’ team also found that bees always collected pollen from both crops 
and  native plants. Since crop fields aren’t in bloom for the entire bee 
active  season, Williams says, the bees need an adequate alternative source of 
nectar  and pollen, and may travel several kilometers to find it. Therefore, a 
mosaic  landscape that has natural areas mixed in with agriculture is important 
to keep  bee colonies healthy. 
“Today’s landscape is both natural and managed,” says Williams. “It’s not  
just matrix of natural areas with agriculture mixed in, but a patchwork quilt  
with animals using all of the areas in the landscape.”  
Other presenters in this session include Juliet Osborne of the Centre for  
Soils and Ecosystem Function, United Kingdom, who will speak about bee movement  
patterns and pollen flow; Yukari Suzuki-Ohno of Tokohu University, Japan, who 
 will discuss bee nest site choice; Margarita Lopez-Uribe of Cornell 
University,  who will talk about the ecology of gene flow among bee populations; 
Marcos G.E.  Da Luz of Universidade Federal do Paraná, Brazil, who will discuss how 
bees  search for food sources; Helen J. Young of Middlebury College, who will 
discuss  human land use and its relationship to bee flower visitation; Ralph 
Grundel of  the U.S. Geological Survey, who will speak about the landscape 
ecology of bee  community composition; and Berry Brosi of Stanford University, 
who will talk  about bee floral fidelity.  
For more information about this session and other ESA Annual Meeting  
activities, visit _http://www.esa.org/milwaukee_ (http://www.esa.org/milwaukee) . The 
theme  of the meeting is “Enhancing Ecological Thought by Linking Research 
and  Education.” More than 3,500 scientists are expected to attend. 
The Ecological Society of America is the world’s largest professional  
organization of ecologists, representing 10,000 scientists in the United States  and 
around the globe. Since its founding in 1915, ESA has promoted the  
responsible application of ecological principles to the solution of  environmental 
problems through ESA reports, journals, research, and expert  testimony to 
Congress. ESA publishes four journals and convenes an annual  scientific conference. 
Visit the ESA website at _http://www.esa.org_ (http://www.esa.org/) .
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 


Laurie Davies Adams
Executive Director
Pollinator  Partnership 
423 Washington Street, 5th floor
San Francisco, CA  94111
415-362-1137
LDA at pollinator.org

_www.pollinator.org_ (http://www.pollinator.org/) 

_www.nappc.org_ (http://www.nappc.org/) 

National Pollinator Week is June 22-28, 2009. 
Beecome  involved at _www.pollinator.org_ (http://www.pollinator.org/) 



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