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Decline in Pollinator Health and Impact on Agriculture
Context
The issue of declining populations of insect pollinators, particularly bees, has gained attention recently due to growing concerns about their impact on global food security. A significant portion of the world’s agricultural productivity depends on insects to pollinate over 75% of food crops, fruits, and flowering plants. However, the health of pollinators is under threat from a variety of factors, including pesticides, pollution, climate change, and habitat loss.
Role of Pollinators:
- A significant portion of the world’s agricultural productivity depends on small insect pollinators like bees, wasps, beetles, flies, moths, and butterflies. These insects are essential for the successful pollination of over 75% of food crops, fruits, and flowering plants.
- Threats to Pollinators:
- Pollinators face several threats, including pesticides, pollution, climate change, habitat loss.
- A new emerging threat is infectious diseases, which have worsened due to the loss of natural habitats for these insects.
- Research has shown that pathogens (diseases) can be transmitted between managed honey bees and wild pollinators, a process known as pathogen spillover.
- The western honey bee can carry diseases, acting as a reservoir that infects wild pollinators. This poses a threat to the wider pollinator population.
- Wild pollinators, like bees and hoverflies, had 10 times higher levels of pathogens in areas where they shared floral resources with western honey bees. This shows that habitat overlap increases the risk of disease transmission between managed and wild bees.
- Role of Habitat Diversity: The researchers suggest that diverse habitats with abundant floral resources can reduce the chances of disease transmission between honey bees and wild pollinators. However, habitat loss forces pollinators into smaller areas, increasing the risk of disease spread.
Native Bees in India:
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Related PYQQ. Consider the following kinds of organisms/factors: (2012)
Which of the above is/are pollinating agent/agents?
Solution: (d) |
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