Category Archives: Hoverflies

Pollinators need more space and 10% habitat is not enough says a new study just published in Science

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Pollinators such as wild bees, butterflies, and hoverflies are in trouble worldwide. A major new study, published in Science and led by Gabriella Bishop and other scientists at Wageningen University & Research, shows that the oft-quoted figure of 10% semi-natural habitat in farmland landscapes is far too little to safeguard pollinators. Instead, the evidence points to a need for somewhere between 16% and 37% habitat cover, depending on the type of pollinator, if we are serious about halting declines. Suitable habitats include hedgerows, patches of woodland, species-rich grasslands, and flowering margins, and as a general rule, hoverflies need less of it whilst bumblebees and butterflies require more.

I was fortunate to play a part in this global assessment, contributing an unpublished dataset collected with my former PhD student, Sam Tarrant, who studied plant-pollinator interactions on restored landfill and established grassland sites. Seeing those data joined with dozens of other studies from around the world underlines something we have known for years: no single dataset, however carefully gathered, can give us the whole picture. To really understand what is happening to biodiversity—and to design conservation solutions that work—we need these kinds of global, mega-author syntheses that draw together evidence from many landscapes, taxa, and approaches.

The message from this analysis is stark but hopeful. More habitat means more pollinators, across all groups. Richer habitats with abundant flowers give an additional boost, but the overriding priority must be to increase the sheer area of natural habitat in farmed landscapes. Small-scale fixes like wildflower strips offer short-term benefits, but without enough space they can’t deliver recovery at scale. Long-term, secure habitat creation—on the order of decades, not seasons—is what pollinators, farmers, and ecosystems need.

Although the policy debate in Europe provided the backdrop for this study, the lessons (and the data) are global. Wherever agriculture dominates, the health of pollinator populations—and by extension our food security and biodiversity—depends on our willingness to give these insects the space and quality of habitat they require.

Looking ahead, we need to think bigger and work together. That means more international collaborations, more sharing of data, and more commitment to long-term solutions that transcend borders. The image at the start of this post is from my trip back to China in July this year. I deliberately chose it because, as you’ll see from the map below which is taken from the paper, there was no suitable data available for the study from that country. Or from Africa. Or Australasia. Or from most of tropical South America. That shows that as pollination ecologists we need to coordinate more in advance on these types of syntheses, and maximise the value of the kinds of data that we collect. The main take away from this study, however, is that if we want to reverse the declines in biodiversity, scientists, policymakers, businesses, farmers, and citizens all have a role to play. Pollinators remind us that nature is interconnected and global—our conservation efforts must be, too.

Here’s the full reference with a link to the study:

Bishop, G.A., Kleijn, D., Albrecht, M., Bartomeus, I., Isaacs, R., Kremen, C., Magrach, A., Ponisio, L.C., Potts, S.G., Scheper, J., Smith, H.G., Tscharntke, T., Albrecht, J., Badenhausser, I., Åström, J., Báldi, A., Basu, P., Berggren, N., Beyer, N., Blüthgen, R., Bommarco, B.J., Brosi, H., Cohen, L.J., Cole, K.R., Denning, M., Devoto, J., Ekroos, F., Fornoff, B.L., Foster, M.A.K., Gillespie, J.L., Gonzalez-Andujar, J.P., González-Varo, J.P., Goulson, D., Grass, I., Hass, A.L., Herrera, J.M., Holzschuh, A., Hopfenmüller, S., Izquierdo, J., Jauker, B., Kallioniemi, E.P., Kirsch, F., Klein, A.-M., Kovács-Hostyánszki, A., Krauss, J., Krimmer, E., Kunin, B., Laha, S.A.M., Lindström, Y., Mandelik, G., Marcacci, D.I., McCracken, M., Monasterolo, L.A., Morandin, J., Morrison, S., Mudri Stojnic, J., Ollerton, J., Persson, A.S., Phillips, B.B., Piko, J.I., Power, E.F., Quinlan, G.M., Rundlöf, M., Raderschall, C.A., Riggi, L.G.A., Roberts, S.P.M., Roth, T., Senapathi, D., Stanley, D.A., Steffan-Dewenter, I., Stout, J.C., Sutter, L., Tanis, M.F., Tarrant, S., van Kolfschoten, L., Vanbergen, A.J., Vilà, M., von Königslöw, V., Vujic, A., WallisDeVries, M.F., Wen, A., Westphal, C., Wickens, J.B., Wickens, V.J., Wilkinson, N.I., Wood, T.J., Fijen, T.P.M. (2025) Critical habitat thresholds for effective pollinator conservation in agricultural landscapes. Science 389: 1314-1319

Here’s the abstract:

Biodiversity in human-dominated landscapes is declining, but evidence-based conservation targets to guide international policies for such landscapes are lacking. We present a framework for informing habitat conservation policies based on the enhancement of habitat quantity and quality and define thresholds of habitat quantity at which it becomes effective to also prioritize habitat quality. We applied this framework to insect pollinators, an important part 5 of agroecosystem biodiversity, by synthesizing 59 studies from 19 countries. Given low habitat quality, hoverflies had the lowest threshold at 6% semi-natural habitat cover, followed by solitary bees (16%), bumble bees (18%), and butterflies (37%). These figures represent minimum habitat thresholds in agricultural landscapes, but when habitat quantity is restricted, marked increases in quality are required to reach similar outcomes.

Surveying for Pollinators: join me for an online live webinar on 2nd October!

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On Thursday, October 2 at 6:30pm, I’m running an online webinar on the theme of Surveying for Pollinators. Follow that link for more details and to book a ticket.

Here’s an overview of what I’ll be covering:

Pollinators like bees, butterflies, hoverflies and even beetles play a vital role in keeping our ecosystems thriving. They help plants reproduce, support biodiversity, boost food production, and contribute billions to the global economy. Beyond their ecological importance, they’re also excellent indicators of environmental health — when pollinators are doing well, nature usually is too.

But how do we actually find out what’s happening with pollinators?

In this webinar, we’ll explore the fascinating world of pollinator surveys — from simple, hands-on methods anyone can try, to more advanced techniques used by experienced entomologists and ecologists. You’ll get an overview of popular approaches, including:

  • Flower-Insect Timed Counts – A quick and accessible method inspired by the UK Pollinator Monitoring Scheme (PoMS).
  • Transect Walks – Great for spotting pollinators along a fixed route and comparing habitats.
  • Plant-focused sampling – for when you really want to delve deep into the pollinators of a species.
  • Trapping methods – including pan traps, vane traps, Malaise traps, and moth traps.
  • Camera Traps – A non-intrusive way to capture who’s visiting flowers when you’re not looking.

We’ll break down the pros and cons of each technique, which approaches are best suited to the question being asked, what to consider before starting your own survey, and how your efforts can feed into national monitoring schemes like PoMS, the UK Butterfly Monitoring Scheme, and BeeWalk.

Whether you’re a curious beginner, a budding citizen scientist, a research student, or a conservation professional, this session will give you the knowledge and tools to design a pollinator survey that fits your goals — and helps protect the buzz behind biodiversity.

The 90-minute event will consist of a 1-hour presentation followed by a Q&A with the tutor using questions provided by the live audience.

The presentations will be recorded and shared with those who booked, alongside Q&A transcripts and relevant links following the event via a password-protected website.

What is happening to wild bees in Britain?

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Recently the Bumblebee Conservation Trust (BCT) reported that, in 2024, British bumblebees experienced their worst year since the BCT started its monitoring campaign. Overall, the numbers of bees were down by more than one fifth, with one of our commonest species, the Red-tailed Bumblebee (Bombus lapidarius) declining a staggering 74%! The cause seems to be the cold, wet spring of 2024 and we have to hope that this is a blip that will not be repeated in 2025. So far the year has been cold and I didn’t see my first queen bumblebee flying until early March. But the very warm weather over the last few days has encouraged bumblebees out of hibernation and plants to start flowering.

Long-term monitoring of the type that the BCT undertakes with its volunteers, is vital if we are to understand how British pollinators are faring. When I compiled the evidence for the chapter entitled ‘The shifting fates of pollinators’ in my book Pollinators & Pollination: Nature and Society, I tried to give a global overview, but also focused on British records, which are probably the best long-term data that is available on trends in pollinators. This information is compiled by the Joint Nature Conservation Committee (JNCC) as part of its annual UK Biodiversity Indicators reports. Each year it produces an indicator showing trends in bees, hoverflies, and the two combined as an overall pollinator trend*. To quote the JNCC website:

The indicator is based on 394 species (158 species of bee and 236 species of hoverfly), and measures change in the number of 1 kilometre grid squares across the UK in which they were recorded in any given year: this is referred to as the ‘occupancy index’.

The bee data comes from the Bees, Wasps and Ants Recording Society (BWARS) and the graph of bee trends that I used in that chapter of my book assessed records up until 2017. It looked like this:

As you can see, the index fluctuated a bit but was on average fairly stable up until 2005, after which there was a sharp decline, then an uptick from about 2014, though still low compared to the 1980 baseline. The overall impression is that bees had a tough time from the early 2000s onward, but things seem to be improving.

Since my book came out in 2021 I’ve given a lot of talks to natural history societies, ran training with consultancies and local councils, and so forth. Each year I update the JNCC graphs in my talks to give the audience the latest information. This is the one I used last year, which took the data up to 2019**:

This looks a bit different – the fluctuations are more pronounced – but overall the trend is similar, though the drop after 2015 is worrying. The impression is that there’s been big (cyclical?) fluctuations in the bee index over time, but its generally always below the 1980 baseline.

Updating the story to 2022 (the most recent available) shows a very different picture:

The impression it gives is that there’s been some modest fluctuations in the bee index, but then from about 2013 onward, the index has massively improved and now wild bees are doing better than ever!

What’s happening here? Why are these three graphs – published over a period of about five years – giving such different impressions of what’s happening to wild bees in Britain? As far as I can tell there’s two main reasons for the changes. The first is that the number of bee species included in the index increased from 137 to 148 to 158. Adding species for which there was previously no or little data is clearly going to have an effect.

The second reason, perhaps more fundamental, is that the method used for calculating the index has been refined, as explained in the technical annex to the study. That’s important because the data underlying the bee index was never collected in a standardised way for the purposes of assessing species’ trends. For this reason the UK Pollinator Monitoring Scheme (PoMS) was developed and it’s interesting to see that the data in the latest PoMS report shows some stability in wild bee abundance from 2017 to 2022:

So the latest data suggests that, for once, there’s some good news in the world of British wildlife. Does this mean that we should be complacent about the state of our wild bees? Absolutely not! As always, the devil’s in the details. The BCT report that I cited at the start of this post provides one level of (worrying) detail. But another is provided by the JNCC’s own statistics. As well as showing the overall trend in the bee index, the analysis digs into what is happening for individual species and provides a helpful summary figure like this:

Clearly many species are doing well, or at least have not changed since the 1980s. But more than one quarter of British wild bees are showing a weak or strong decline over the long term. That’s a clear signal that we need to keep on with our efforts to support wildlife and enhance our strategies to improve the state of nature in Britain.

As always, feel free to comment on the post or get in touch via my Contact page.

My sincere thanks to all of the volunteer naturalists who collect the data used by JNCC and PoMS – the task of assessing trends in wildlife would be impossible without your commitment!

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*Why JNCC does not include butterflies – which are assessed separately – in this overall trend is unclear to me, as we know that they can be important pollinators for some plants – see my blog post: ‘Butterflies, bumblebees and hoverflies can be equally effective pollinators of some plants says a new study‘.

**The data in the JNCC report is always a couple of years behind the publication date.

Biodiversity Net Gain and pollinators: catch up with my talk on YouTube

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Yesterday I delivered a webinar for the Biological Recording Company on the topic of what Biodiversity Net Gain (BNG) could mean for pollinator conservation. It’s a topic that clearly has a lot of resonance for the ecology community: almost one thousand people (994 to be precise) booked to attend, of which 380 actually watched. That’s a fairly typical ratio for free webinars, in my experience – many people book a place in the expectation that they will receive a link to watch the recording later.

The talk was indeed recorded and can be viewed by following this link to YouTube. There was a Q&A session afterwards which is not part of the recording but the questions and my answers have been transcribed and can be viewed on the Biological Recording Company’s blog, together with links to all of the references and data sources that I cited. Here’s the link to the blog.

I had a lot of really positive feedback during and after my talk, plus some extremely useful comments about where my interpretation of BNG was incorrect (or at least didn’t tell the whole story). As I stressed during my talk, BNG is a journey not an end point and we are all at the start of that journey! It’s going to be fascinating and important to see whether BNG can positively impact declining pollinator populations.

Biodiversity Net Gain and pollinators – join me for a FREE webinar next Monday!

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Biodiversity Net Gain is generating a lot of attention in the UK at the moment, some of it positive*:

“when designed and delivered well, BNG can secure benefits for nature, people and places, and for the economy”

“[BNG is] a game-changer for health and wellbeing”

And some of it extremely negative*:

“Biodiversity Net Gain is a lie but most people without enough ecological knowledge cannot see this & are fooled by the lie”

“[BNG is] a horrible legalistic contrivance, and it means nothing”

Regardless of how you feel about BNG, it’s here to stay, at least for the foreseeable future, and so we need to explore it and understand how (or whether) it can positively improve the state of nature in Britain.

Although I don’t pretend to be an expert on BNG**, I have thought a lot about how it might impact the group that I do have some expertise in, pollinators, and the implications for the pollination services that they provide to wild and crop plants.

Last October I produced a short report that considered the implications of BNG for insect pollinators – you can download a copy from the original blog post, though do be aware that some of the dates I mentioned were later revised by the then government and I have yet to revise the document.

As a follow up to this I have been invited by the Biological Recording Company to lead a one-hour webinar discussing this topic on Monday 28th October at 1pm. It’s free to attend and you can book a ticket by following this link. There’ll be a short presentation (30 minutes or so) followed by a live Q&A.

I hope that some of you can join me!

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*Real quotes, culled from reports and social media.

**Indeed, it’s such a new approach to development and nature conservation, can anybody consider themselves an expert?

What are the limits to pollinator diversity? A new article poses the question

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The most globally significant groups of pollinators are well known and have been studied for a long time: bees and wasps, flies, butterflies and moths, birds, bats and beetles are all familiar to those of us with an interest in pollination ecology. However, every few years a new type of pollinator or a novel pollination system is described from nature or from the fossil record, or we add further examples of previously neglected pollinator groups such as cockroaches.

This begs the question: how much is there still to discover? How close are we to describing the full diversity of animals that act as pollen vectors? Can looking at the past help us to predict what we might find in the future? That’s the topic of a Perspective article that I was invited to write for the special issue of the Journal of Applied Entomology on the theme of  The Neglected Pollinators that I mentioned last month. It’s a subject that I’ve thought about a lot over the last few decades and it was great to get an opportunity to air some ideas and speculation.

The article is open access and you can download a copy by following the link in this reference:

Ollerton, J. (2024) What are the phylogenetic limits to pollinator diversity? Journal of Applied Entomology (in press)

Here’s the abstract:

Although huge progress has been made over the past 200 years in identifying the diversity of pollinators of angiosperms and other plants, new discoveries continue to be made each year, especially in tropical areas and in the fossil record. In this perspective article I address the following questions: Just how diverse are the pollinators and what are the phylogenetic limits to that diversity? Which other groups of animals, not currently known to regularly engage with flowers, might be found to be pollinators in the future? Can we predict, from the fossil record and from discoveries in under-researched parts of the world, which animal groups might turn out in the future to contain pollinators? I also discuss why adding to our knowledge of plant–pollinator interactions is important, but also stress that an incomplete knowledge may not be a bad thing if it means that remote, inaccessible and relatively pristine parts of the world remain that way.

Butterflies, bumblebees and hoverflies can be equally effective pollinators of some plants says a new study

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Just after I arrived in Northampton in 1995, I set about looking for suitable local sites for conducting pollination ecology field work for myself and students. The campus on which we were situated at the time was adjacent to an urban park – Bradlaugh* Fields – parts of which were designated as local nature reserves. In the intervening years, data from that area have made their way into a wide range of published studies, including:

I still have data collected during that time that have never been published, but good data are hard won and they may see the light of day at some point. Case in point is that we’ve just published a paper based on data from Bradlaugh Fields, the first of which were collected in 2001!

In this paper we’ve tested how effective hoverflies, butterflies and bumblebees are at pollinating the flowers of a common generalist grassland plant, colloquially called Field Scabious (Knautia arvensis). The expectation was that bumblebees, being generally larger, hairier and more flower-focused than the other groups, would be the most effective at transferring pollen to stigmas. To our surprise, they were not: hoverflies and butterflies performed just as well! In fact we argue that butterflies may be MORE important as pollinators of this plant because they fly further distances between individual plants, rather than hopping between the inflorescences of the same plants, as bumblebees tend to do.

Crucially, the importance of these different groups of pollinators varies enormously as the relative abundance of the insects visiting the flowers differs between seasons. In some years butterflies dominate as pollinators, in other years bumblebees or hoverflies. This is driven, we think, both by fluctuations in the populations of these insects and by the availability of other, more preferred flowers that may bloom at the same time.

The paper is part of a special issue of the Journal of Applied Entomology devoted to The Neglected Pollinators. It’s open access and you can download a copy by following the link in this reference:

Ollerton, J., Coulthard, E., Tarrant, S., Woolford, J., Ré Jorge, L. & Rech, A.R. (2024) Butterflies, bumblebees and hoverflies are equally effective pollinators of Knautia arvensis (Caprifoliaceae), a generalist plant species with compound inflorescences. Journal of Applied Entomology (in press)

Here’s the abstract:

Plant-pollinator interactions exist along a continuum from complete specialisation to highly generalised, that may vary in time and space. A long-held assumption is that large bees are usually the most effective pollinators of generalist plants. We tested this by studying the relative importance of different groups of pollinators of Knautia arvensis (L.) Coult. (Caprifoliaceae: Dipsacoideae). This plant is suitable for such a study because it attracts a diversity of flower visitors, belonging to different functional groups. We asked whether all functional groups of pollinators are equally effective, or if one group is most effective, which has been documented in other species with apparently generalised pollination systems. We studied two subpopulations of K. arvensis, one at low and one at high density in Northampton, UK. To assess pollinator importance we exposed unvisited inflorescences to single visits by different groups of pollinators (butterflies, bumblebees, hoverflies and others) and assessed the proportion of pollinated stigmas. We then multiplied the effectiveness of each pollinator group with their proportional visitation frequency in five different years. For each group we also compared time spent on flowers and flight distance between visits. The relative importance of each pollinator group varied between years, as did their flight distances between flower visits. Butterflies were the best pollinators on a per visit basis (in terms of the proportion of stigmas pollinated) and flew further after visiting an inflorescence. Different measures and proxies of pollinator effectiveness varied between taxa, subpopulations, and years, and no one group of pollinators was consistently more effective than the others. Our results demonstrate the adaptive value of generalised pollination strategies when variation in relative abundance of different types of pollinators is considered. Such strategies may have buffered the ability of plants to reproduce during past periods of environmental change and may do so in the future.

*Named after the estimable local MP and radical Charles Bradlaugh – see my blog post When Charles collide: Darwin, Bradlaugh, and birth control for Darwin Day 2016

New study just published: The effect of elevation, latitude, and plant richness on robustness of pollination networks at a global scale

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During the 2020 lockdown caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, I coordinated an international network of pollination ecologists who used standardised methods to collect data in their gardens. I blogged about it at the time – see here and here for instance – and also put up a post when the data paper from that work was published.

Several research groups are now working with that huge data set and interrogating it for answers to a wide range of questions. The first group to actually publish a paper from the data is a largely Chinese set of researchers from the Key Laboratory of Plant Resources, Conservation and Sustainable Utilization, at the South China Botanical Garden in Guangzhou, assisted by Kit Prendergast and myself.

In this paper we’ve considered how robust these plant-pollinator networks are to simulated extinctions of species, and how this is affected by the elevation, latitude, and plant species diversity of the network.

Here’s the full reference with a link to the study:

Wang, X.-P., Ollerton, J., Prendergast, K.S., Cai, J.-C., Tong, M.-Y., Shi, M.-M., Zhao, Z.-T., Li, S.-J. & Tu, T.-Y. (2024) The effect of elevation, latitude, and plant richness on robustness of pollination networks at a global scale. Arthropod-Plant Interactions (in press) https://doi.org/10.1007/s11829-024-10056-7

If you can’t access it and need a PDF, please send me a request via my Contact page.

Here’s the abstract:

Plant-pollinator interactions play a vital role in the maintenance of biodiversity and ecosystem function. Geographical variation in environmental factors can influence the diversity of pollinators and thus, affect the structure of pollination networks. Given the current global climate change, understanding the variation of pollination network structure along environmental gradients is vital to predict how global change will affect the ecological interaction processes. Here, we used a global plant-pollinator interaction data collection by the same sampling method at the same period to explore the effects of elevation, latitude, and plant richness on the structure and robustness of pollination networks. We analyzed a total of 87 networks of plant-pollinator interactions on 47 sites from 14 countries. We conducted a piecewise structural equation model to examine the direct and indirect effects of elevation, latitude, and plant richness on the network robustness and analyzed the function of network structure in elucidating the relationship between robustness and these gradients. We found that plant richness had both positive effects on robustness under random and specialist-first scenarios. Elevation, latitude, and plant richness affected network connectance and modularity, and ultimately affected network robustness which were mediated by nestedness under specialist-first and random scenarios, and by connectance under the generalist-first scenario. This study reveals the indirect effects of elevation, latitude, and plant richness on pollination network robustness were mediated by nestedness or connectance depended on the order of species extinctions, implying that communities with different pollination network structures can resist different extinction scenarios.

Reusing Plant-Pollinator Datasets – a free WorldFAIR webinar on 18th April

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A message from Dr Debora Drucker, WorldFAIR Agricultural Biodiversity Case Study Lead:

Registration is open to our contribution to the WorldFAIR webinar series – “Reusing Plant-Pollinator Datasets: a Global Perspective with Guidelines and Recommendations inspired by Pilot Studies from Africa, the Americas and Europe”.

It will be held on April 18 at 2:00 pm – 3:00 pm (Times in UTC) – https://worldfair-project.eu/event/the-worldfair-webinar-series-reusing-plant-pollinator-datasets-a-global-perspective-with-guidelines-and-recommendations-inspired-by-pilot-studies-from-africa-the-americas-and-europe/

We will present results from Deliverables 10.2 & 10.3, with focus on our pilot studies:

Drucker, D., Salim, J. A., Poelen, J., Soares, F. M., Gonzalez-Vaquero, R. A., Ollerton, J., Devoto, M., Rünzel, M., Robinson, D., Kasina, M., Taliga, C., Parr, C., Cox-Foster, D., Hill, E., Maues, M. M., Saraiva, A. M., Agostini, K., Carvalheiro, L. G., Bergamo, P., Varassin, I.; Alves, D. A., Marques, B., Tinoco, F. C., Rech, A. R., Cardona-Duque, J., Idárraga, M., Agudelo-Zapata, M. C., Marentes Herrera, E. Trekels, M. (2024). WorldFAIR (D10.2) Agricultural Biodiversity Standards, Best Practices and Guidelines Recommendations (Version 1). Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.10666593

Drucker, D. P., Salim, J. A., Poelen, J., Soares, F. M., Gonzalez-Vaquero, R. A., Devoto, M., Ollerton, J., Kasina, M., Carvalheiro, L. G., Bergamo, P. J., Alves, D. A., Varassin, I., Tinoco, F. C., Rünzel, M., Robinson, D., Cardona-Duque, J., Idárraga, M., Agudelo-Zapata, M. C., Marentes Herrera, E., Taliga, C., Parr, C.S., Cox-Foster, D., Hill, E., Maués, M.M. Agostini, K. Rech, A.R., Saraiva, A. (2024). WorldFAIR (D10.3) Agricultural biodiversity FAIR data assessment rubrics (Version 1). Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.10719265

We reserved a good amount of time for Q&A – I hope to see you there and have a nice discussion!

New report on Colorado’s native insect pollinators just published – download a free copy

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Yesterday I received an email containing the following press release. I thought it might interest readers of the blog so I am copying it in full with no edits. I had a quick look over the report and it’s amazingly detailed and comprehensive. It’s a shame that the report only covers insects, but that probably reflects my current bias given that my next book, due out in February, is about pollinating birds! Press release follows:

Governor Polis and the Department of Natural Resources Release Pollinator Report

BROOMFIELD – Today, Governor Polis in partnership with The Colorado Department of Natural Resources (DNR), Colorado State University Extension, Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation, and University of Colorado Museum of Natural History released the Colorado Native Pollinating Insects Health Study which is the most robust and detailed account of pollinator health ever undertaken in Colorado history. As directed by SB22-199, Native Pollinating Insects Protection Study, sponsored by Senators Sonya Jaquez Lewis and Kevin Priola, and Representatives Cathy Kipp and Meg Froelich, signed by Governor Polis on May 27, 2022, the study assesses the health of Colorado’s native pollinators, evaluates state policies for safeguarding pollinators, and makes recommendations on how to preserve and protect pollinators in Colorado. 
 

“Pollinators play a critical role in Colorado life. From Crested Butte’s beautiful spring meadows to Palisade Peaches and Rocky Ford melons, Colorado’s pollinators sustain our flora and enable many foundational industries in every corner of the state. As our climate changes, we must safeguard the pollinators that generate and regenerate the Colorful Colorado we love,” said Governor Polis 
 

Colorado is home to various native insects and bats whose pollinating services are at the heart of healthy environments and economies. Pollinators are critical to Colorado’s economy and our agricultural production and food systems, and they are essential for flowering plants that support the state’s wildlife ecosystem and add color to Colorado’s beautiful landscapes. 

“Colorado is fortunate to have a tremendous diversity of plants and animals, but pollinating insects are perhaps the least studied but most beneficial for our ecosystems, economy and quality of life,” said Dan Gibbs, Executive Director, Colorado Department of Natural Resources. “I greatly appreciate the time and effort of the study authors who truly did a deep dive into the current state of pollinating insects and state policies and structures. I look forward to working with Colorado legislators and stakeholders in pursuing the best policies to ensure pollinating insect protection and long-term health.”
 

Colorado is home to over 1,000 species of bees—nearly 30% of North America’s and approximately 5% of the world’s bee species—and nearly 300 species of butterflies, representing over 40% of the diversity of butterflies in North America north of Mexico, some of which are already listed under the federal Endangered Species Act. This report underscores the importance of the Polis administration’s goals to tackle Colorado’s greenhouse gas emissions, prepare industries for the impending effects of climate change, and create more sustainable living in Colorado for pollinator populations. 
 

“Our ecosystems rely on pollinators, which is why I’ve championed measures that limit toxic chemicals from harming pollinators and put forth a statewide assessment to better understand the problems our pollinators face and identify practices to better sustain them,” said Senator Sonya Jaquez Lewis, D-Longmont. “Today’s report shows that there’s plenty to do moving forward, and I am looking forward to continuing our work to protect pollinators and the ecosystems that are dependent on them.”
 

“I’m excited that we have this report to help us understand the extent of pollinator decline in Colorado. While Colorado ranks fifth nationally for the rate of honey-bee die-offs, we haven’t known as much about native pollinating insects. This threatens our food production, biodiversity and health of our ecosystems,” said Rep. Cathy Kipp, D-Fort Collins. “We created the Native Pollinating Insects Protection Study in 2022 to identify ways to better protect and support the native Colorado pollinators, like different bee species, butterflies, and moths, that are also essential to maintaining a healthy environment. These findings will help direct future legislation to create a safer environment for our pollinators, protect our food supply and support biodiversity.”
 

Promoting policies that benefit native pollinating insects represents an opportunity to foster healthy and sustainable pollinator populations, especially in agricultural and urban habitats. This includes enhancing pollinator-friendly native plantings along I-76 following its designation as a Colorado Pollinator Highway by the Colorado Department of Transportation and other existing state plans such as the state’s Natural Areas Program, and Wildlife Action Plan among others. 

“Working on the Pollinator Health Study has been an amazing opportunity to collaborate with so many locally, nationally, and internationally recognized experts in the field of pollinator conservation. In addition to the immense amount of information within the report, this study highlights the importance of collaboration between scientists and land management agencies to bring together the many facets needed for conserving native pollinating insects,” said Deryn Davidson, Sustainable Landscape State Specialist, Colorado State University Extension. “Having the existing research on Colorado pollinators paired with recommended land management practices in one, comprehensive document is an incredible tool for policy makers, land managers, and really anyone interested in actionable steps for pollinator conservation.”

Areas of immediate action and priorities highlighted by the Pollinator Report include:
 

  • Priority 1: Protect imperiled native pollinating insects.
  • Priority 2: Protect, restore, and connect pollinator habitats.
  • Priority 3: Mitigate environmental changes that negatively impact pollinators and their habitats.
  • Priority 4: Reduce the risks from pesticides to pollinating insects.
  • Priority 5: Monitor and support native and managed pollinator health.

Governor Polis announced his annual budget proposal on November 1, focusing on ensuring Colorado is more affordable, sustainable, and liveable. The Governor included $100,000  to support education and incentives to encourage the use of pesticide alternatives in agricultural production and residential or commercial landscaping. On May 17, 2023, Governor Polis signed Neonic Pesticides as Limited-Use Pesticides, sponsored by Senators Kevin Priola and Sonya Jaquez Lewis and Representatives Kyle Brown and Cathy Kipp, which protects pollinators from harmful toxins.