Pollinators are crucial contributors to our environment and society by enhancing plant diversity in wild lands and providing food for humans in agricultural settings. Some three-fourths of all native plants in the world require pollination by an animal, most often an insect, and most often a native bee.
decision tools such as the National Protocol Framework for the Inventory and Monitoring of Bees.
Our projects are coordinated through the Federal Pollinator Health Task Force and the Monarch Butterfly High Level Working Group as identified in the 2014 Presidential Memorandum on Pollinator Health.
Pollinators, most often honey bees, are responsible for one in every three bites of food you take, and increase our nation’s crop values each year by more than 15 billion dollars.
More information about Status and Trends program pollinator research is available from the "Related Science" tab on the top navigation or from the links below.
DNA Barcoding, based on sequence variation between taxa in the cytochrome c oxidase subunit 1 (COI) of mitochondrial DNA or other loci, has provided an alternative, genetically-based methodology for distinguishing bee specimens. The application of Next-Generation Sequencing (NGS) technologies to DNA Barcoding has permitted the sequencing of many more samples at one time, at lower cost, and increased sequencing depth per specimen.
Beginning in 2012, the USGS collaborated with the USDA to assess the effectiveness of pollinator plantings and how alteration of landscapes has affected native pollinators and potentially contributed to their decline. The 2008 Farm Bill recognized contributions made by pollinators and made conservation of pollinator habitat a priority. The USGS is assessing native bee habitat, diversity, and richness in eastern Colorado grasslands and croplands to evaluate the extent to which they provide food and refuge.
Native bees also face challenges due to loss of the plants, from which they gather nectar and pollen, and from introduced diseases and general loss of habitat. Additionally, both Mountain Tops and Dunes contain bees that are only found in these isolated habitats. As regions warm and seas rise these species may be trapped without a place to go.
Honey bee colony failure is primarily due to the infestation of mites and agricultural pesticides, including neonicotinoids. USGS researches the impacts these have on honey bee reproductive capabilities.
USGS studies related to pollinators that are part of the Status and Trends program are listed below.
Bogan, Michael A.; Cryan, Paul; Weise, Christa D.; Valdez, Ernest W.
Bogan, M.A., P.M. Cryan, C.D. Weise, and E.W. Valdez. 2017. Landscape movements by two species of migratory nectar-feeding bats (Leptonycteris) in a northern area of seasonal sympatry. Western North American Naturalist 77(3):317-330.
Otto, C. R. V., S. O’Dell, R. B. Bryant, N. H. Euliss Jr., R. Bush, and M. D. Smart. 2017. Using publicly available data to quantify plant-pollinator interactions and evaluate conservation seeding mixes in the Northern Great Plains. Environmental Entomology, doi:10.1093/ee/nvx070.
Hladik, M.L., Bradbury, S., Schulte, L.A., Helmers, M., Witte, C., Kolpin, D.W., Garrett, J.D. and Harris, M., 2017, Neonicotinoid insecticide removal by prairie strips in row-cropped watersheds with historical seed coating use, Agric. Ecosyst. Environ., v. 241, pp. 160-167.
Tick and mosquito control provides important public health protection, but can also affect pollinator populations. The effects are often dependent on specific local conditions, such as how close the pesticide application is to places pollinators frequent, and when they frequent them.