Prelude
Maintenance of robust wildlife communities is valued by many Americans as a central aspect of national pride and cultural heritage. What is less recognized is the role healthy ecosystems play in the health and sustenance of human populations. When wildlife or a piece of a wildlife system directly benefits human well-being it is referred to as an ecosystem service. Decline in bee populations worldwide is putting humankind at risk of damaging it’s most imperative ecosystem service: animal pollination of food crops. This essay will address the potential link between loss of bee colonies and use of neonicotinoid pesticides. It is also a response to the inadequacy of the steps taken by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in 2013 to …show more content…
2012). There is mounting evidence that many global bumble bee species populations have been in declined in recent decades. Rapid decline of several North American bumble bee populations began in 1990 (Goulson, Lye & Darvill, 2008), which coincides with the beginning of widespread use of neonicotinoids in the US. While it is difficult to obtain comprehensive data on bee populations, the negative effects of neonicotinoids on bee colonies is currently widely accepting. In January of 2016 the EPA released a risk assessment of Imidacloprid, a neonicotinoid, in which they conceded their previous oversight of the negative consequences use of neonicotinoids as insecticides has on bee …show more content…
Neonicotinoids from the seed coating are then assimilated into the plant’s pollen and nectar. 90% of the initial neonicotinoid treatment is not assimilated and remains in the soil at the time of flowering (Blacquiere et al. 2012). Neonicotinoids solubility and persistence in water allows them to leach from these depositions in croplands to contaminate soils and crops along the boundary of a cropland (Botais, David and Goulson, 2016). Due to the density of crop fields in many of the globe’s natural bee habitats, 100% of the land are in a 10 by 20 km plot in lowland England was with 1 km of a neonicotinoid contaminated oilseed rape crop in 2007 (Goulson et al. 2010), little neonicotinoid free habitat is
Maintenance of robust wildlife communities is valued by many Americans as a central aspect of national pride and cultural heritage. What is less recognized is the role healthy ecosystems play in the health and sustenance of human populations. When wildlife or a piece of a wildlife system directly benefits human well-being it is referred to as an ecosystem service. Decline in bee populations worldwide is putting humankind at risk of damaging it’s most imperative ecosystem service: animal pollination of food crops. This essay will address the potential link between loss of bee colonies and use of neonicotinoid pesticides. It is also a response to the inadequacy of the steps taken by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in 2013 to …show more content…
2012). There is mounting evidence that many global bumble bee species populations have been in declined in recent decades. Rapid decline of several North American bumble bee populations began in 1990 (Goulson, Lye & Darvill, 2008), which coincides with the beginning of widespread use of neonicotinoids in the US. While it is difficult to obtain comprehensive data on bee populations, the negative effects of neonicotinoids on bee colonies is currently widely accepting. In January of 2016 the EPA released a risk assessment of Imidacloprid, a neonicotinoid, in which they conceded their previous oversight of the negative consequences use of neonicotinoids as insecticides has on bee …show more content…
Neonicotinoids from the seed coating are then assimilated into the plant’s pollen and nectar. 90% of the initial neonicotinoid treatment is not assimilated and remains in the soil at the time of flowering (Blacquiere et al. 2012). Neonicotinoids solubility and persistence in water allows them to leach from these depositions in croplands to contaminate soils and crops along the boundary of a cropland (Botais, David and Goulson, 2016). Due to the density of crop fields in many of the globe’s natural bee habitats, 100% of the land are in a 10 by 20 km plot in lowland England was with 1 km of a neonicotinoid contaminated oilseed rape crop in 2007 (Goulson et al. 2010), little neonicotinoid free habitat is