More than 75% of European bumblebee species may be threatened in the next 40-60 years according to worst-case-scenario projections of bumblebee populations, according to a paper published in Nature. Degradation of habitats and alterations of climate due to human activity are identified as key drivers of these estimated population declines. The findings underscore the importance of climate change mitigation policies to protect bumblebees.
“Our results underline the critical role of global change mitigation policies as effective levers to protect bumblebees from manmade transformation of the biosphere,” the authors write.
Around 90% of all wild plants and most crop plants benefit from pollination by animals. The bumblebee (Bombus) is a genus of bees considered to be especially important for the pollination of crops in the cold and temperate regions of the northern hemisphere. Human-generated transformations of natural habitats and increases in temperature are implicated as key drivers of wildlife collapse; understanding the trajectory of insect populations is important for devising conservation efforts.
