Pollinators play a critical role in food production. According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Farmers.gov website, more than 80 percent of the world’s flowering plants need a pollinator to reproduce. Because most food comes from flowering plants, humans need pollinators too. Pollinators are also a key part of the food web, and they play a role in contributing to soil health and water quality by helping foster robust plant communities. It is estimated they provide ecological services valued at $200 billion each year.
Dramatic decreases in bee populations and other pollinator species across North America have raised alarms. On a recent program, Dan Cariveau, associate professor with the University of Minnesota Bee Lab, along with moderator Claire LaCanne, University of Minnesota-Extension educator in crops, discussed pollinators and how people can promote them on an agricultural landscape.
Cariveau discussed that although bees have been found in the fossil record dating back 65 to 75 million years ago, scientists have determined the first DNA from bees likely dates back to around 123 million years ago. Around that time flowers started evolving too. Today, flowers and bees are closely linked, with bees being a critical pollinator of flowers.
At least 20,000 species of bees have been identified around the world. When talking about bees, many people think of the honey bee, but they are just one bee species. Minnesota alone has about 525 species of bees, ranging from tiny species barely seen with the naked eye to large bumblebee species.
Cariveau’s lab specializes in native bee species. Many of those are considered ground-nesting bees -- about 80 percent -- because they nest in the ground. Others next in cavities, such as in the hollow stems of plants. While honey bees are social, other bees are solitary. Although there is much diversity among bees, one thing remains constant, and that is that bees rely on flowers for all of their life cycle.
It is not easy to answer how bees are currently doing. Cariveau describes that question like asking a botanist how plants are doing or an ornithologist how birds are doing. It depends on the species. The rusty patch bumblebee used to be relatively common across much of the northeastern United States and Upper Midwest. Now it is all but extinct over much of its old habitat, being found in just a few locations including in Minnesota, and it has been listed on the Endangered Species list since 2017.
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