Native bees offer low effort, high payoff species conservation
By Lauren Lewis
You’ve probably seen media about the alarming loss of bees in the last decade or so, and it has most likely been framed as a biodiversity conservation issue. That angle on the issue is misleading because the vast majority of this public attention has been directed, often unknowingly, toward honeybees only. Honeybees are not native to North America and are essentially a domesticated species: highly managed and transported for crop pollination and honey production. The threat to crop pollination from honeybee decline is hugely important — valuable foods like avocados, blueberries, almond all rely on pollination for the fruits to develop — but it’s not exactly a conservation issue with ecosystem preservation as the goal. What does fit into that category is the issue of native bee population decline.
There are around 4,000 species of native bees in the United States, and many of these have shown alarming population decline in recent years. This is a concern if we care purely about the inherent value of biodiversity, but also because native insects are typically linked through their roles as pollinators and prey to so many other species in an ecosystem. (You can’t lose one species in an ecosystem without other species being affected- they’re all connected!) Research has linked native bee population decline to diminished pollen resources following land development, and sadly also to native bees’ higher susceptibility to agricultural chemicals, as compared to honeybees. Some research in California’s Central Coast has shown that honeybees and native bees are directly competing for scarce food resources and native bees may be losing the battle.
The silver lining here is that more research is beginning to show just how important cities can be as refuges for native bees and other pollinators. Studies have shown greater diversity of native bees in cities than surrounding agricultural land, suggesting that the urban environment is more hospitable to the bees. The presence of gardens, which can provide both food (pollen in flowers) and shelter (for native bees that’s most often bare ground or rotting wood for burrowing), is key. Given these relatively minor requirements for survival, supporting native bees is potentially low effort and high impact. City governments could put out PSAs that encourage folks to grow some native flowers, in whatever space they have available, and to leave a bit of bare dirt for bee burrows. (Pointing out that native bees are mostly solitary, rather than swarming, and also far less likely to sting than honeybees, would probably be helpful, too.) Happily, a blooming garden that supports native bees also brings beauty and joy to us humans.
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