tony1's Journal

The fact of the matter is that many are unaware of the great responsibilities that pollinators carry and don’t know the devastating consequences that can occur if they were to vanish. As of today the status of bees has been in decline these past few decades and even reached endangerment from certain types of bees. One of several species facing sharp declines, the bumble bee known to scientists as Bombus affinis has plunged nearly 90 percent in abundance and distribution since the late 1990s, according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. The definitive cause of this declination is still undetermined but one of these possibility may be due to the varroa mite which is a parasitic mite that feeds off of these adult bees and can lead to colony bee losses. Other possibilities is that bees are threatened by habitat loss, disease, and the excessive and inappropriate use of pesticides. The loss of commercial bees to Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) has highlighted how severe the issues of proper hive management are to reduce stresses caused by disease, pesticide use and insufficient nutrition.

Why are pollinators a big deal to the biosphere health? Typically, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, these under-appreciated workers pollinate 80 percent of our flowering crops, which constitute one-third of everything we eat. It is estimated that those crops account for one trillion dollars in annual sales of agricultural products around the globe. Examples of common crops depending on bee pollination include broccoli, blueberry, cherry, apple, and cucumbers. So an absence of pollinators mainly bees will result in a harsh impact to human health as well as the environment since they are part of the intricate web that supports the biological diversity in natural ecosystems that helps sustain our quality of life. So steps need to be taken in order to assure prosper uprising of bee population to ensure the stability of ecological health.

Reference:
http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20140502-what-if-bees-went-extinct
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/u-s-lists-a-bumble-bee-species-as-endangered-for-first-time/
http://entnemdept.ufl.edu/creatures/misc/bees/varroa_mite.htm
http://www.endangeredspeciesinternational.org/insects6.html
http://rspb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/274/1608/303.short
http://www.beesmatter.ca/why-are-honey-bees-important-to-crops-and-farmers/
https://www.ecologyandsociety.org/vol5/iss1/art5/
http://www.pollinator.org/PDFs/Guides/EBFContinentalrx13FINAL.pdf

As we approached the final site(Long Beach) there was a sharp decrease of plants in the environment and a minimum to no bees were spotted. An absence of plants caused this to occur, the only plantae present were trees or certain ferns which do not attract bees.

http://homeguides.sfgate.com/plants-dont-attract-bees-48439.html

Around my neighborhood there was a moderate amount of bees spotted, even a hummingbird was spotted near a feeder. This is due to the various plants that are located along my area, but although a variety there wasn’t as much as the previous site of the JPL and lower arroyo. The reason is based on the amount of the abundance in plants located in my neighborhood which was less than the two previous sites.

For our beginning sites the abundance of bees were high. This might be due to the amount of plants that were in the area as well as the environment it was located in. The JPL and lower arroyo provided a sense of wildlife sense these were the locations that were least altered by human interactions. As well as a high volume of nectar or pollen present in these locations which ultimately correlates to a high number of pollinators.

https://underc.nd.edu/assets/174523/fullsize/mcnally_final_paper.pdf

In these following journals my focus will be about pollinators which will include both bees and butterflies. The abundance and presence of these pollinators throughout my observation changes within locations throughout these past months. At the start at school there was a sharp numbers of bees at the science village as well as a genus hylephila was spotted. This was because various pollinating plants were located near there which attracted these insects.