Tag Archives: Conservation

Claims that only 10% – and not 75% – of crops are pollinator dependent are misleading and dishonest

Earlier this week the Genetic Literacy Project site posted an essay entitled ‘10% — not 75% — of crops pollinator-dependent: Our World in Data debunks claims that global food supply is imminently endangered by ‘disappearing’ insects‘. That click-bait title is hugely misleading, some of the purported ‘facts’ are incorrect, and indeed the whole thing reeks of dishonesty and bad faith.

First the misleading title. This ‘debunks’ claim actually compares two different things: 75% of CROPS being dependent on pollinators versus 10% of crop YIELD. However, even if we focus on the 10% claim, a small increase in yield can be the difference between profit and bankruptcy for small-scale farmers. And most of the world’s farmers are small-scale and living on the borderline between loss and break-even. In addition, there’s no acknowledgement of the food production from home gardens, allotments, and community gardens, which is significant but largely unquantified.

Next, by focusing on yield and comparing, say, wind-pollinated wheat with insect-pollinated apples, the article takes no account of the fact that many of these crops that depend to some extent on pollinators mainly provide essential vitamins and minerals – not calories – to diets. When I tweeted about this earlier in the week, one person commented that they describe the insect-pollinated foods as ‘an important source of flavour and colour in our diets, rice and wheat are all well and good, but you do kinda need something more than grey slop to live’. Another said: ‘I’m so glad you mentioned this. I’m sick of reading articles that praise innovations to increase calories, when what we need is better nutrition from vitamins, minerals & fibres’.

Both great points, and well made.

That essay was also factually incorrect when it described roots crops such as carrots or some of the leafy cabbages and lettuces as not requiring pollinators. Many varieties of these crops ARE pollinator dependent: how do they think we get the seed for the next year’s crop?! And there are many crops and varieties that have not been evaluated for their dependency on pollinators: the 75% figure actually refers to the 115 most productive crop plants (Klein et al. 2007).

When I tweeted about the essay I commented that I was very disappointed by ‘Our World in Data’ – they are usually better than this when it comes to the facts. What I hadn’t appreciated at the time was that in fact the Genetic Literacy Project had highjacked the original piece by Hannah Ritchie and reworked it to give it a very different slant*.

This is where it starts to get dishonest and in fact the Genetic Literacy Project (GLP) has form in this area. The Sourcewatch site describes the GLP as ‘a corporate front group that was formerly funded by Monsanto’ with a remit to ‘shame scientists and highlight information helpful to Monsanto and other chemical producers’. In other words it’s heavily tied to Big Agriculture which, of course, would like us to believe that there’s not an issue with declining pollinators, that pesticides and agricultural intensification are our friends, and that Everything Is OK. Read the full account here.

Frankly, the GLP is so tainted that I’d not believe anything that they publish.

Pollinator decline and the role of pollinators in agriculture are complex issues. If you’d like to know more about the importance of pollinators to agriculture, complete with some accurate and objective facts, then there’s a whole chapter devoted to the topic in my book Pollinators & Pollination: Nature and Society.

*Note that I’ve been communicating with Hannah about the root and leaf crop issue and she accepts that this needs to change in the original. She’s also asked the Genetic Literacy Project to take down their version as it contravenes copyright.

Reference

Klein, A.-M., Vaissière, B.E., Cane, J.H. et al. (2007) Importance of pollinators in
changing landscapes for world crops. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London B
274: 303–313.

New article just published: ‘Pollinators and pollination: myths, misunderstandings and much more to discover’

SCAPE 2020 – pollinators & pollination conference: here’s the programme

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There’s still a few hours left in which to register to attend the SCAPE 2020 pollinators and pollination conference. Follow the links on the website: https://scape-pollination.org/

The programme is more or less finalised and is shown below. We have an amazing range of topics being presented from both established and early career researchers, including two keynote lectures, plus posters. It’s going to be a very exciting weekend of science!

PROGRAMME

Talk types:

K = Keynote

ST = Standard (10 minutes talk + 5 for questions)

F = Flash talk (5 minutes, no questions)

Friday 6^th November – all timings are GMT (London) time

Timing	Type	Name	Title	Ref
09.00 –09.15		Jeff Ollerton	Open conference and welcome
09.15 –10.15	K	Lynn Dicks	Understanding the risks to human well-being from pollinator decline	K.01
10.15 –10.30		Comfort break	Time to top up your coffee
Session 1		Chair: Jeff Ollerton	Agriculture – 1
10.30 – 10.45	ST	Ke Chen	Indirect and additive effects of arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi on insect pollination and crop yield of raspberry under different fertilizer levels	1.01
10.45 – 11.00	ST	Julia Osterman	Enhancing mason bee populations for sweet cherry pollination	1.02
11.00 – 11.15	ST	Idan Kahnonitch	Viral distributions in bee communities: associations to honeybee density and flower visitation frequency	1.03
11.15 – 11.30	ST	Anna Birgitte Milford	Who takes responsibility for the bees?	1.04
11.30 – 11.45	ST	Emma Gardner	Boundary features increase and stabilise bee populations and the pollination of mass-flowering crops in rotational systems	1.05
11.45 – 12.00	ST	Stephanie Maher	Evaluating the quantity and quality of resources for pollinators on Irish farms	1.06
12.00 –12.05	F	Thomas Timberlake	Pollinators and human nutrition in rural Nepal: experiences of remote data collection during a global pandemic	1.07
12.05 –12.15		Comfort break
Session 2		Chair: Jane Stout	Agriculture – 2
12.15 – 12.30	ST	Michael Image	The impact of agri-environment schemes on crop pollination services at national scale	2.01
12.30 – 12.45	ST	Nicola Tommasi	Plant – pollinator interactions in sub-Saharan agroecosystems	2.02
12.45 – 13.00	ST	Tal Shapira	The combined effects of resource-landscape and herbivory on pollination services in agro-ecosystems	2.03
13.00 – 13.15	ST	Márcia Motta Maués	Despite the megadiversity of flower visitors, native bees are essential to açai palm (Euterpe oleracea Mart.) pollination at the Amazon estuary	2.04
13.15 – 13.30	ST	Sabrina Rondeau	Quantifying exposure of bumblebee queens to pesticide residues when hibernating in agricultural soils	2.05
13.30 –13.35	F	Maxime Eeraerts	Landscapes with high amounts of mass-flowering fruit crops reduce the reproduction of two solitary bees	2.06
13.35 – 13.40	F	Patricia Nunes-Silva	Crop domestication, flower characteristics and interaction with pollinators: the case of Cucurbita pepo (Cucurbitaceae)	2.07
13.40 – 14.30		Lunch break
Session 3		Chair: Mariano Devoto	Networks and communities
14.30 – 14.45	ST	Kit Prendergast	Plant-pollinator networks in Australian urban bushland remnants are not structurally equivalent to those in residential gardens	3.01
14.45 – 14.50	F	Kavya Mohan	Structure of plant-visitor networks in a seasonal southern Indian habitat	3.02
14.50 – 14.55	F	Opeyemi Adedoja	Asynchrony among insect pollinator groups and flowering plants with elevation	3.03
14.55 – 15.10	ST	Yael Mandelik	Rangeland sharing by cattle and bees: moderate grazing does not impair bee communities and resource availability	3.04
15.10 – 15.25	ST	Felipe Torres-Vanegas	Landscape change reduces pollen quality indirectly by shifting the functional composition of pollinator communities	3.05
15.25 – 15.40	ST	Isabela Vilella-Arnizaut	Quantifying plant-pollinator interactions in the Prairie Coteau	3.06
15.40 – 15.55		Comfort break
Session 4		Chair: Nina Sletvold	Conservation perspectives – 1
15.55 – 16.10	ST	Lise Ropars	Seasonal dynamics of competition between honeybees and wild bees in a protected Mediterranean scrubland	4.01
16.10 – 16.25	ST	Philip Donkersley	A One-Health model for reversing honeybee (Apis mellifera L.) decline	4.02
16.25 – 16.40	ST	Nicholas Tew	Nectar supply in gardens: spatial and temporal variation	4.03
16.40 – 16.55	ST	Peter Graystock	The effects of environmental toxicants on the health of bumble bees and their microbiomes	4.04
16.55 – 17.10	ST	Hauke Koch	Flagellum removal by a heather nectar metabolite inhibits infectivity of a bumblebee parasite	4.05
17.10 – 17.25		Comfort break
Session 5		Chair: Anders Nielsen	Conservation perspectives – 2
17.25 – 17.40	ST	Miranda Bane	Pollinators on Guernsey and a Pesticide-free Plan	5.01
17.40 – 17.55	ST	Jamie Wildman	Reintroducing Carterocephalus palaemon to England: using the legacy of a locally extinct butterfly as a (morpho)metric of future success	5.02
17.55 – 18.10	ST	Sjirk Geerts	Invasive alien Proteaceae lure some, but not other nectar feeding bird pollinators away from native Proteaceae in South African fynbos	5.03
18.10 – 18.25	ST	Sissi Lozada Gobilard	Habitat quality and connectivity in kettle holes enhance bee diversity in agricultural landscapes	5.04
18.25 –18.45		Comfort break
18.45 – 23.59		Themed discussion rooms open

Saturday 7^th November – all timings are GMT (London) time

Timing	Type	Name	Title	Ref
08.55 – 09.00		Jeff Ollerton	Reminders and announcements
Session 6		Chair: Jeff Ollerton	Conservation perspectives – 3
09.00 – 09.15	ST	Paolo Biella	The effects of landscape composition and climatic variables on pollinator abundances and foraging along a gradient of increasing urbanization	6.01
09.15 – 09.30	ST	James Rodger	Potential impacts of pollinator declines on plant seed production and population viability	6.02
09.30 – 09.45	ST	Emilie Ellis	Moth assemblages within urban domestic gardens respond positively to habitat complexity, but only at a scale that extends beyond the garden boundary	6.03
09.45 – 10.00	ST	Samuel Boff	Novel pesticide class impact foraging behaviour in wild bees	6.04
10.00 – 10.15		Comfort break	Time to top up your coffee
Session 7		Chair: Jon Agren	Conservation perspectives – 4
10.15 – 10.20	F	Maisie Brett	The impacts of invasive Acacias on the pollination networks of South African Fynbos habitats	7.01
10.20 – 10.25	F	Joseph Millard	Global effects of land-use intensity on local pollinator biodiversity	7.02
10.25 – 10.30	F	Susanne Butschkau	How does land-use affect the mutualistic outcomes of bee-plant interactions?	7.03
10.30 – 10.35	F	Elżbieta Rożej-Pabijan	Impact of wet meadow translocation on species composition of bees (Hymenoptera: Apoidea: Apiformes)	7.04
10.35 – 10.40	F	Lorenzo Guzzetti	May urbanization affect the quality of pollinators diet? A case-study from Milan, Italy.	7.05
10.40 – 10.45	F	Emiliano Pioltelli	Functional traits variation in two bumblebee species along a gradient of landscape anthropization	7.06
10.45 – 11.00		Comfort break
Session 8		Chair: Marcos Mendez	Pollinator behaviour – 1
11.00 – 11.15	ST	Hema Somanathan	Foraging on left-overs: comparative resource use in diurnal and nocturnal bees	8.01
11.15 – 11.30	ST	Sajesh Vijayan	To leave or to stay? Answers from migratory waggle dances in Apis dorsata	8.02
11.30 – 11.45	ST	Balamurali MGS	Decision making in the Asian honeybee Apis cerana is influenced by innate sensory biases and associative learning at different spatial scales	8.03
11.45 – 12.00	ST	Gemma Villagomez	Resource intake of stingless bee colonies in a tropical ecosystem in Ecuador	8.04
12.00 – 12.15	ST	Ola Olsson	Pollen analysis using deep learning – better, stronger, faster	8.05
12.15 – 13.00		Lunch break
Session 9		Chair: Magne Friberg	Pollinator behaviour – 2
13.00 – 13.15	ST	Shuxuan Jing	‘Interviewing’ pollinators in the red clover field: foraging behaviour	9.01
13.15 – 13.30	ST	Océane Bartholomée	How to eat in the shade? Bumblebees’ behavior in partially shaded flower strips	9.02
13.30 – 13.45	ST	Manuela Giovanetti	Megachile sculpturalis: insights on the nesting activity of an alien bee species	9.03
13.45 – 14.00	ST	Zahra Moradinour	The allometry of sensory system in the butterfly Pieris napi	9.04
14.00 – 14.05	F	Pierre Tichit	New insights into the visual ecology of bees	9.05
14.05 – 14.10	F	Fabian Ruedenauer	Does pollinator dependence correlate with the nutritional profile of pollen in plants?	9.06
14.10 – 14.15	F	Hannah Burger	Floral signals involved in host finding by nectar-foraging social wasps	9.07
14.15 – 14.30		Comfort break
Session 10		Chair: ‪ Amy Parachnowitsch	Floral scent
14.30 – 14.45	ST	Herbert Braunschmid	Does the rarity of a flower´s scent phenotype in a deceptive orchid explain its pollination success?	10.01
14.45 – 15.00	ST	Yedra García	Ecology and evolution of floral scent compartmentalization	10.02
15.00 – 15.15	ST	Manoj Kaushalya Rathnayake	Does floral scent changes with pollinator syndrome?	10.03
15.15 – 15.20	F	Hanna Thosteman	The chemical landscape of Arabis alpina	10.04
15.20 – 15.25	F	Laura S. Hildesheim	Patterns of floral scent composition in species providing resin pollinator rewards	10.05
15.25 – 15.30	F	Christine Rose-Smyth	Does Myrmecophila thomsoniana (Orchidaceae) use uncoupled mimicry to obtain pollination?	10.06
15.30 – 15.45		Comfort break
Session 11		Chair: Renate Wesselingh	Pollination ecology and floral evolution – 1
15.45 – 16.00	ST	Rachel Spigler	Adaptive plasticity of floral display and its limits	11.01
16.00 – 16.15	ST	Wendy Semski	Individual flowering schedules and floral display size in monkeyflower: a common garden study	11.02
16.15 – 16.30	ST	Carlos Martel	Specialization for tachinid fly pollination and the evolutionary divergence between varieties of the orchid Neotinea ustulata	11.03
16.30 – 16.45	ST	Marcela Moré	Different points of view in a changing world: The tobacco tree flowers through the eyes of its pollinators in native and non-native ranges	11.05
16.45 – 17.00		Comfort break
17.00 – 18.00		Poster discussion rooms open	A chance to talk with the author of the posters
18.00 – 23.59		Themed discussion rooms open

Sunday 8^th November – all timings are GMT (London) time

Timing	Type	Name	Title	Ref
08.55 – 09.00		Jeff Ollerton	Reminders and announcements
09.00 – 10.00	K	Scott Armbruster	Pollination accuracy explains the evolution of floral movements	K.02
10.00 – 10.15		Comfort break	Time to top up your coffee
Session 12		Chair: Jeff Ollerton	Pollination ecology and floral evolution – 2
10.15 – 10.30	ST	Kazuharu Ohashi	Three options are better than two: complementary nature of different pollination modes in Salix caprea	12.01
10.30 – 10.45	ST	James Cook	Why size matters in fig-pollinator mutualisms	12.02
10.45 – 11.00	ST	Yuval Sapir	Within-population flower colour variation: beyond pollinator-mediated selection	12.03
11.00 – 11.15	ST	Henninge Torp Bie	Flower visitation of the Sticky catchfly (Viscaria vulgaris) on isles within isle.	12.04
11.15 – 11.20
11.20 – 11.30		Comfort break
Session 13		Chair: Yuval Sapir	Pollination ecology and floral evolution – 3
11.30 – 11.45	ST	Jonas Kuppler	Impacts of drought on floral traits, plant-pollinator interactions and plant reproductive success – a meta-analysis	13.01
11.45 – 12.00	ST	Carmen Villacañas de Castro	Cost/benefit ratio of a nursery pollination system in natural populations: a model application	13.02
12.00 – 12.15	ST	Anna E-Vojtkó	Floral and reproductive plant functional traits as an independent axis of plant ecological strategies	13.03
12.15 – 12.30	ST	Camille Cornet	Role of pollinators in prezygotic isolation between calcicolous and silicicolous ecotypes of Silene nutans	13.04
12.30 – 12.45	ST	Courtney Gorman	Phenological and pollinator-mediated isolation among selfing and outcrossing Arabidopsis lyrata populations	13.05
12.45 – 13.45		Lunch break
Session 14		Chair: Rocio Barrales	Pollination ecology and floral evolution – 4
13.45 – 14.00	ST	Danae Laina	Geographic differences in pollinator availability in the habitats shape the degree of pollinator specialization in the deceptive Arum maculatum L. (Araceae)	14.01
14.00 – 14.15	ST	Eva Gfrerer	Is the inflorescence scent of Arum maculatum L. (Araceae) in populations north vs. south of the Alps locally adapted to a variable pollinator climate?	14.02
14.15 – 14.30	ST	Kelsey Byers	Pollinators and visitors to Gymnadenia orchids: historical and modern data reveal associations between insect proboscis and floral nectar spur length	14.03
14.30 – 14.45	ST	Nina Jirgal	Orientation matters: effect of floral symmetry and orientation on pollinator entry angle	14.04
14.45 – 15.00	ST	Alice Fairnie	Understanding the development, evolution and function of the bullseye pigmentation pattern in Hibiscus trionum	14.05
15.00 – 15.15		Comfort break
Session 15		Chair: Maria Clara Castellanos	Pollination ecology and floral evolution – 5
15.15 – 15.30	ST	Jon Ågren	On the measurement and meaning of pollinator-mediated selection	15.01
15.30 – 15.45	ST	Katarzyna Roguz	Plants taking charge: Autonomous self-pollination as response to plants-pollinator mismatch in Fritillaria persica	15.02
15.45 – 16.00	ST	Mario Vallejo-Marin	Bees vs flies: Comparison of non-flight vibrations and implications for buzz pollination	15.03
16.00 – 16.15	ST	Agnes Dellinger	Linking flower morphology to pollen-release dynamics: buzz-pollination in Melastomataceae	15.04
16.15 – 16.30	ST	Lucy Nevard	Are bees and flowers tuned to each other? Variation in the natural frequency of buzz-pollinated flowers.	15.05
16.30 – 16.35	F	Gabriel Chagas Lanes	An investigation of pollen movement and release by poricidal anthers using mathematical billiards	15.06
16.35 – 16.40	F	Rebecca Hoefer	The magnitude of water stress and high soil nitrogen decreases plants reproductive success	15.07
16.40 – 16.45	F	Marta Barberis	May ecotonal plants attract less efficient pollinators to stay on the safe side?	15.08
16.45 – 17.00		Comfort break
Session 16		Chair: Jeff Ollerton	Pollination ecology and floral evolution – 6
17.00 – 17.15	ST	Gabriela Doria	Petal cell shape and flower-pollinator interaction in Nicotiana	16.01
17.15 – 17.30	ST	Nathan Muchhala	The long stems characteristic of bat-pollinated flowers greatly reduce bat search times while foraging	16.02
17.30 – 17.35	F	Juan Isaac Moreira-Hernández	Differential tolerance to heterospecific pollen deposition in sympatric species of bat-pollinated Burmeistera (Campanulaceae: Lobelioideae)	16.03
17.35 – 17.40	F	Juan José Domínguez-Delgado	Does autopolyploidy contribute to shape plant-pollinator interactions?	16.04
17.40 – 17.45	F	Caio Simões Ballarin	How many animal-pollinated plants are nectar-producing?	16.05
17.45 – 17.50	F	Ana Clara Ibañez	Concerted evolution between flower phenotype and pollinators in Salpichroa (Solanaceae)	16.06
17.50 – 18.15		Jeff Ollerton	Prize announcements, conference handover and close.	16.07

Pollinators and pollination in the UK: an introductory workshop – 26th August

Animal deaths in the Australian bushfires even greater than first feared – and what about the plants?

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2019-12-27 15.07.16

Earlier this year I reported on the unprecedented Australian bushfires with some reflections of what I was observing during my time as a Visiting Research Fellow at the University of New South Wales – see: How are the Australian bushfires affecting biodiversity? Australia reflections part 4. Karin also wrote a piece about the fires, focusing on the human impacts – see: Climate Change Stories From a Nation on Fire.

At the time scientists and the media were suggesting that perhaps half a billion reptiles, mammals and birds had been killed, a figure that provoked a strong public reaction when accompanied by images of fire-scorched koalas. This was then revised upwards to 1 billion. But it turns out that even a billion is nowhere close to the real number of animal deaths. A new interim report commissioned by WWF-Australia suggests that just under 3 billion animals were either directly killed or displaced. Those which were displaced were vulnerable to feral predators such as foxes and cats, or more likely to succumb to starvation. An article in The Guardian about the WWF-Australia report is worth reading – here’s the link.

The actual figure is 2.69 billion individual animals. Think about that for a moment. That’s about equivalent the number of people living in India and China combined. This is the breakdown for the different animal groups that were assessed:

● 143 million mammals
● 2.46 billion reptiles
● 180 million birds
● 51 million frogs

One thing should be immediately apparent: this is not a complete list of the “animals” that have been killed. A lack of data means that fish, turtles and (crucially) invertebrates such as spiders, bees, beetles, and earthworms, were excluded. Those invertebrates live at much higher densities than any of the animal groups that were assessed and indeed are the sole or principle food for many of those species. The number of insects required to support just the insectivorous birds is staggering: globally, birds are estimated to eat 400-500 million tonnes of insects and other arthropods every year.

Even if we were to consider just the larger invertebrates, those bigger than say 0.5 cm in length (which are a minority – most are considerably smaller), then then the true scale of the animal deaths is going to be one or two orders of magnitude higher. Or possibly more. Thirty billion, 300 billion, 3 trillion…? Who knows? It’s impossible to estimate, we just don’t have enough information about those organisms.

The other major component of wildlife that is missing from the report is the plants. I know that studies of plant mortality are being undertaken at the moment and it will be important that this is given the same level of publicity as the assessments of animals.

Writing in the foreword of the report, Dermot O’Gorman the CEO of WWF-Australia pointed out that: “It’s hard to think of another event anywhere in the world in living memory that has killed or displaced that many animals. This ranks as one of the worst wildlife disasters in modern history”.

I disagree. I think it’s THE worst wildlife disaster in terms of the scale of animal losses over such a short period of time. No doubt deforestation and destruction of grasslands in South America, Asia and Africa has killed more animals and plants. But that’s over a timescale of decades to hundreds of years. Australian wildlife was devastated in a matter of months. And no one knows exactly what the 2020-21 fire season will bring. But I think that we can safely predict further impacts on wildlife – and people.

Get a 30% discount if you pre-order my new book Pollinators & Pollination: Nature and Society

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PollinatorsandPollination-frontcover

In the next few months my new book Pollinators & Pollination: Nature and Society will be published. As you can imagine, I’m very excited! The book is currently available to pre-order: you can find full details here at the Pelagic Publishing website. If you do pre-order it you can claim a 30% discount by using the pre-publication offer code POLLINATOR.

As with my blog, the book is aimed at a very broad audience including the interested public, gardeners, conservationists, and scientists working in the various sub-fields of pollinator and pollination research. The chapter titles are as follows:

Preface and Acknowledgements
1. The importance of pollinators and pollination
2. More than just bees: the diversity of pollinators
3. To be a flower
4. Fidelity and promiscuity in Darwin’s entangled bank
5. The evolution of pollination strategies
6. A matter of time: from daily cycles to climate change
7. Agricultural perspectives
8. Urban environments
9. The significance of gardens
10. Shifting fates of pollinators
11. New bees on the block
12. Managing, restoring and connecting habitats
13. The politics of pollination
14. Studying pollinators and pollination
References
Index

Biodiversity, plant-pollinator interactions, and the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals

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In the past couple of weeks I’ve delivered two presentations at virtual conferences. The first was at a Global Sustainability Summit run by Amity University, one of our partner institutions in India. The second was at the University of Northampton’s own internal research conference. Both of these focused on pollinators, as you might imagine, but they also referred to the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The 17 SDGs are being increasingly used as a framework for promoting the importance of biodiversity to human societies across the globe, and I’m seeing them referred to more and more often in studies and reports about pollinator conservation. That’s great, and I’m all in favour of the SDGs being promoted in this way. However I wanted to highlight a couple of aspects of the SDGs that I think are missing from recent discussions.

The first is that pollinators, and their interactions with plants, are often seen as contributing mainly to those SDGs that are directly related to agriculture and biodiversity. Here’s an example. Last week the European Commission’s Science for Environment Policy released a “Future Brief” report entitled: “Pollinators: importance for nature and human well-being, drivers of decline and the need for monitoring“. It’s a really interesting summary of current threats to pollinator populations, how we can monitor them, and why it’s important. I recommend you follow that link and take a look. However, in the section about relevant, global-level policies, the report highlights “the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) – especially regarding food security (‘zero hunger’) and biodiversity (‘life on land’).

I think this is under-selling pollinators and pollination, and here’s why. First of all, as we pointed out in our 2011 paper “How many flowering plants are pollinated by animals?”, approaching 90% of terrestrial plants use insects and vertebrates as agents of their reproduction and hence their long-term survival. As we showed in that paper, and a follow up entitled “The macroecology of animal versus wind pollination: ecological factors are more important than historical climate stability“, the proportion of animal-pollinated plants in a community varies predictably with latitude, typically from 40 to 50 % in temperate areas up to 90 to 100% in tropical habitats. Now, flowering plants dominate most terrestrial habitats and form the basis of most terrestrial food chains. So the long-term viability and sustainability of much the Earth’s biodiversity can be linked back, directly or indirectly, to pollinators. That’s even true of coastal marine biomes, which receive a significant input of energy and nutrients from terrestrial habitats.

Biodiversity itself underpins, or directly or indirectly links to, most of the 17 SDGS; those that don’t have an obvious link have been faded out in this graphic:

The underpinning role of biodiversity, and in particular plant-pollinator interactions, on the SDGs needs to be stated more often and with greater emphasis than it is currently.

The second way in which I think that some writers and researchers in this area have misconstrued the SDGs is that they seem to think that it only applies to “developing” countries. But that’s certainly not the way that the UN intended them. ALL countries, everywhere, are (or should be) “developing” and trying to become more sustainable. To quote the UN’s SDG website:

“the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)….are an urgent call for action by all countries – developed and developing – in a global partnership.”

and

“the SDGs are a call for action by all countries – poor, rich and middle-income – to promote prosperity while protecting the environment.”

I interpret this as meaning that “developed” countries need to consider their own future development, not that they only have to give a helping hand to “developing” countries (though that’s important too). Just to drive this home, here’s a recent case study by Elizabeth Nicholls, Dave Goulson and others that uses Brighton and Hove to show how small-scale urban food production can contribute to the SDGs. I like this because it goes beyond just considering the agricultural and food-related SDGs, and also because by any measure, Brighton and Hove is a fairly affluent part of England.

I’m going to be talking about all of this and discussing it with the audience during an online Cafe Scientifique on Thursday 25th June – details are here. I’m also going to be exploring more of these ideas in my forthcoming book Pollinators & Pollination: Nature and Society, which is due for publication later this year. The manuscript is submitted and is about to be copy-edited. The PowerPoint slide which heads this post uses a graphic from that book that sums up how I feel about biodiversity, plant-pollinator interactions, and the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals.

Help to save a bee species from extinction! And watch some cool videos

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It’s World Bee Day and what better way to celebrate it than to help a bee species that’s close to extinction – watch this video about Australia’s Green Carpenter Bee and please donate to the cause:

And while you’re at it, here’s another couple of recent bee-related videos to watch:

And here’s one that doesn’t seem to want to embed – it’s Kit Prendergast from Curtin University.

Sustainability and conservation podcasts: here’s some recommendations

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Podcasts are an increasingly popular way of keeping up with recent developments and stories across a diverse range of topics, from music (I’ve been enjoying the David Crosby Freak Flag Flying and Robert Plant Digging Deep series) to serial killers and the machinations of the American big cat-keeping community. Recently a call went out on the EAUC (Environmental Association for Universities and Colleges) email list for examples of sustainability and conservation podcasts. The request came from Dr Sandra Lee who leads the Social Impact Team at the University of Leicester and she has kindly allowed me to share the set of podcasts she’s collated. Feel free to add your own favourite examples in the comments.

Here’s the list that Sandra compiled: with the exception of In Defense of Plants (which I suggested) the accompanying text comes either from Sandra or from the original submissions by EAUC members. I’ve not listened to all of them so can’t comment on the quality or factual accuracy of the podcasts.

General

Outrage and Optimism – very accessible and a great one for keeping up to date with climate policy and the global movement
The Sustainability Agenda with Fergal Byrne (he has had some amazing guest right at the top of the sustainability field like Naomi Klien, Jonathan Foley, Paul Hawkins, Caroline Lucas, Rob Hopkins, Kate Raworth, Tim Jackson)
Sustainability Defined (Spotify link) – mainly based in the US but there are some great conversations – https://sustainabilitydefined.com/ One university uses this series as the main material for seminar discussions (in this episode University Sustainability with Penn State)
Radio 4’s Costing the Earth
Mothers of invention: Climate is a man-made problem with feminist solutions with former Irish President Mary Robinson (it’s lighthearted and the co-presenter is a complete novice which makes the information very palatable)
Resurgence Voices – this is the Resurgence & Ecologist magazine podcast – (it’s okay not as well done as some others but worth a listen)

More specialist

Vegan Vanguard – run by a Canadian political economist who shares anti-capitalist perspectives on everything from indigenous land rights to geo-engineering, gender-based violence and the alt-right. It’s very useful for learning about the underlying political structures of some of our big sustainability challenges
In Defense of Plants – more botanical than about sustainability per se, but plant conservation figures large in some episodes
Ways to Change the World with Krishnan Guru-Murthy – not always sustainability explicit but does have some great ideas on how to change the way we think, act and live
Making Sense with Sam Harris – looks into controversial questions about the human mind, society and current events
Sustainable World Radio – permaculture and ecology-based podcast
Next Economy Now: Business as a Force for Good – podcast is about leaders looking into regenerative, bio-regional, democratic, transparent and whole-system approaches
Feel Better, Live More – Dr Rangan Chattergee (not sustainability as we know it but absolutely links to Sustainable Development Goal 3)

UPDATE: Feedspot rank and overview sustainability themed podcasts:

https://blog.feedspot.com/sustainability_podcasts/

(HT Michelle Morley, Environmental Sustainability Manager, Oxford Brookes University)

Cherishing old wood: a guitar restoration story – UPDATED

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UPDATE: After I posted this piece I shared it on a couple of Facebook guitar groups. On the Parlor Acoustic Guitar Lovers Group one of the members, Mario Burgani, suggested that in fact the guitar might be Italian, made in Catania in Sicily. I’ve done some searching online and I think that he’s correct. Some of the features that I am seeing on Catania guitars on various websites are identical to mine, in particular the way the back of the guitar has been shaped to cover the heel of the neck, and the shape and design of the floating bridge, with the bone side pieces. My thanks to Mario for pointing this out.

I have now corrected the post and removed mentions of German manufacture.

This post IS about biodiversity, eventually, but I need to give some background first….

Guitar-based music is a big part of my life, and has been since my teens. However it wasn’t until I was about 20 that I first started playing guitar. That’s late, and I wish I’d begun earlier, but neither of my parents were musical and there wasn’t the influence or encouragement. It wasn’t until I finally left home for university, aged 22, that I started taking it in any way seriously and bought a half decent guitar (a 1986 Washburn D-12N, if you’re interested – I still have it and I’m very fond of it). Before I started my PhD, in 1989, I played quite a lot and was involved with the local music scene in Oxford, working stage crew for bands. It was a lot of fun and for a while I considered dropping my PhD and doing it full time. Some of the guys I worked with went on to become part of Radiohead’s crew and have had careers in the music industry. But, you know, life, kids, and science got in the way, the frequency of my playing became less and less, and for a long time I hardly picked up a guitar.

But in the past couple of years I’ve started to get back into it and am enjoying playing again. A few things have prompted this. The kids have all left home now, so I have more time. I’m finding it relaxes me and it’s a good way to get away from work and social media and screens. Also, there are many short “how to play” videos on YouTube, it’s like having a whole set of guitar tutors with different styles and approaches. It’s not just about the music though: I have a fascination with taking apart guitars and fiddling with them, which leads me on to the point of this post.

Back in late September I was looking at vintage acoustic guitars on eBay and salivating over the Martins that were for sale, when a guitar caught my eye. It was an old “parlour” guitar in pretty poor condition, and a steal at £50. Parlour guitars are small-bodied instruments that were popular in homes in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, before the guitars with big bodies, such as the Dreadnought models, became the vogue. They were the sorts of instruments used by early blues players – check out the photograph of Blind Lemon Jefferson on his Wikipedia page and you’ll see what I mean.

I was intrigued by the idea of having an old guitar with an authentic bluesy sound and also having a project to work on, restoring this instrument back to playable condition. The seller was based in Bedford, not far from Northampton, so Karin and I drove down there one Friday evening to pick it up.

Here’s a shot of the guitar as I bought it:

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The body was sound and undamaged. The neck had a bit of a curve to it, but the brass frets were in good condition, though due to the fret board drying out over time their ends were protruding a little either side. However the bone nut at the top of the neck was broken, the pressed metal tailpiece was quite scratched, the tuning heads rusty and a little bent, plus there were a few other dings and dents. Here are some close-ups:

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Someone has strung it with nylon strings which is probably not what was intended for this instrument. The point of a metal tailpiece like this is that it allows the guitar to have metal strings, which are under greater tension, without the need for more complex x-bracing under the soundboard to prevent it from warping or cracking:

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It was clearly not the most expensive of guitars when it was first made, but the marquetry around the sound hole is in perfect condition and nicely executed:

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There’s no manufacturer’s name or label in the guitar, no serial number or anything like that. So I did a little research online. It’s not the best quality guitar, as evidenced by the metal tailpiece which, as I mention, is designed to take the strain off the sound board when using metal strings. The alternative is to have a fixed bridge but that requires more elaborate (= expensive) bracing under the soundboard. However it’s clear that the guitar was handmade, probably in Sicily, by a local luthier, possibly in the 1920s, but certainly somewhere between 1900 and 1940: so it could be more than 100 years old.

The restoration of the guitar was fairly straightforward, the most complex part being the carving of a new bone nut from a blank that I bought online. The machine heads were removed, cleaned and oiled, then re-fitted; I could have replaced them but they were in decent condition given their age and I wanted to retain as much authenticity to the guitar as possible. The frets were filed and a neighbour who is a metal worker polished up the tailpiece. Most of the other work was fairly cosmetic – I didn’t want to touch the original finish.

Now we get to biodiversity. A lot of wood goes into the construction of acoustic guitars. In the case of this instrument, the soundboard is solid European spruce (Picea abies) that has aged to a beautiful golden colour. When I took off the tailpiece its original colour was revealed; that tailpiece has probably never been removed before:

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That spruce top is book-matched: the two sides of the soundboard are symmetrical down the mid-line of the guitar, showing that they were split from the same board. Book-matching is a common technique used by luthiers, both for aesthetic reasons and because it’s harder to get a single piece of tonally-acceptable wood of that width. The tree from which it was cut was probably grown in a plantation; most old growth forest in Europe had been cut by the time this tree started growing. If you count the number of growth lines across one half of the soundboard there’s about 60, which gives an indication of the minimum age of the tree at harvest, i.e. it was at least 60 years old when it was felled. If the guitar was made in around 1925, and given that the wood from the tree would have to season for at least a couple of years, perhaps longer, before it was used, it means that the tree started growing some time in the mid-19th century. So the tree that contributed the soundboard has lived through summers and winters of profound historical change in Europe.

The sides, back and neck of the guitar are mahogany, as is the bridge I think. Nowadays “mahogany” can refer to a range of unrelated tropical trees – see this website for details. But when this guitar was made, mahogany usually referred to wood from species in the genus Swietenia, which naturally grow in Central and northern South America, and the Caribbean. So the tree that donated the wood was cut out of pristine, or at least long-established, tropical rainforest. One possible source is Belize which was exporting a lot of mahogany to Britain during this period, which may then have been exported all over Europe.

The fret board is probably Brazilian rosewood (Dalbergia nigra) judging by the black streaks or “spider webbing” in the timber. Brazil banned exports of the wood in the 1960s but there’s still much illegal harvesting going on of these and other trees. This species, and the three in the genus Swietenia, are in the IUCN categories “Vulnerable” or “Endangered” due to their over-exploitation, and are CITES-listed.

Some other, so far unidentified, woods were used in the construction of the guitar, in the marquetry around the sound hole, in the binding around the top, and in the end strap button. The latter may be ebony from one of several species in the genus Diospyros, which are likewise protected.

The timber used to make these old guitars is a legacy of an age when rapacious exploitation of the world’s natural resources was considered almost a public duty. There was little or no consideration for the ecosystems that were exploited, or how deforestation affected both wildlife and indigenous peoples. To some extent the situation has improved and there are global efforts to conserve the old growth forest that remains, albeit with variable results. But we are far from giving these forests the protection and restoration that they deserve. Modern guitar makers need to take responsibility for sourcing their materials ethically and sustainably, which some are and some are not. There’s a really interesting set of articles about this in the series Building a Sustainable Guitar at the Forest Legality website. At the other extreme the Gibson guitar company pleaded guilty in 2012 to knowingly using timber that was harvested illegally in Madagascar, a trade that Pete Lowry of the Missouri Botanical Garden is quoted as calling the “equivalent of Africa’s blood diamonds”.

Old musical instruments, furniture, and other artifacts have history as well as carbon locked into their timbers. Therefore I think that it’s incumbent upon us to cherish and use them and not consign the wood to the bonfire or to landfill. If that sounds too sentimental, then so be it. But there’s a practical side to this too: they are often better quality than more modern instruments and can be much cheaper.

All of my guitars have names that reflect something of their history. During the drive down to pick up the guitar from Bedford there was the most incredible rain storm, water lashing across the road and windscreen wipers on full blast. So I’ve named this guitar The Rainmaker. You can see the finished result of the restoration in the images at the top of this post. I’m pleased with it and I hope it lasts another 100 years at least.

One final thing: how does the guitar play and sound? Well, as I said, the neck has a bit of a curve to it and there’s no truss rod to adjust it, so re-setting it would be a major job. This means that the action (the distance between the strings and the frets) is very high, especially close to the body. So I’ve tuned the guitar to an open E chord, have invested in a glass bottleneck, and am using it to learn to play blues slide guitar. And it sounds pretty good, with a warm, mellow, and (yes) bluesy sound.