WACD Reading List

The USDA Natural Resource Conservation Service provides funding to help farmers install pollinator habitats on working farms.

This blog shares key findings on the nationwide effectiveness of NRCS conservation practices in delivering benefits to pollinators.

"Agriculture is often implicated with bee declines," he said. "That's sometimes true, but we're not the Midwest. Here in Oregon, farmers are doing a good job overall, and specialty crops are actually contributing to many diverse types of bees."

“Bees in particular are the most productive pollinators, serving as a key player in the food chain,” says Brent Jones, head of GO SEED’s Iowa Research Farm. “Yet in the last couple of decades, the bee population has significantly suffered, directly threatening global food production.” According to the USDA, this decline is largely due to Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD), resulting in colonies abandoning immature bees and food supply. A wide range of factors such as diseases, nutritional deficits, habitat loss and climate variability has been attributed to this. The intensification of agricultural production leading to the decline of crop diversity has also been attributed to CCD.

Bees play a critical role in ecosystem health and sustainability across the globe. They pollinate flowers, trees and other plants that in turn provide food and habitat for other creatures. Their role in pollinating agricultural crops is invaluable. But recently scientists have observed that many pollinating species, including wild bees, are declining in range or abundance and the Midwest United States has among the lowest predicted bee abundance.

In "More Than Meets the Eye? The Role of Annual Ornamental Plants in Supporting Pollinators," Emily Erickson presents the findings of a 2-year field study and describes pollinator visitation to a variety of popular annual ornamental plants.

Residential gardens are a poor substitute for native bushland and increasing urbanization is a growing threat when it comes to bees, Curtin University research has found.

Keystone plant species in North America are important for helping pollinators and insects like bees, butterflies, and caterpillars.

New research shows that global scientific records of bee species has declined by 25 percent since the 1990s.

Global study finds that species numbers reported in the wild fell sharply between 1990 and 2015