Urban Pollinators Project - Beyond Bees

Monday, September 8, 2014 - 09:31 in Mathematics & Economics

The Common Blue butterfly is a pollinator that plays a vital role in maintaining food supplies but it is struggling in the UK countryside. While environmental fundraising corporations try to spin bee numbers to create concern among the public about modern neonicotinoid pesticides, what gets no attention is that 98% of the country's flower-rich meadows have been lost since the end of the Second World War. Yet apples, strawberries, raspberries, beans and tomatoes are all reliant on insect pollinators like butterflies. Globally, crop pollination services are estimated to be worth $153 billion per year. Understanding the influences that the landscape and other environmental factors can have on our pollinators is therefore of huge importance. read more

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