Be(e)autiful
Putting a Price on Pollinators
►► by Elize Uniat and Tara Holmwood The farmers farm, the bees buzz, and the world’s human and animal populations eat the results. But actually, it’s much more complicated than that. There are native pollinators and non-native pollinators. There are crops that need pollinators to succeed and crops that don’t. There are perfect-for-crops fields—large square blocks with no trees or wet areas— and “messy” fields, dotted with wet spots that have a bad rap for getting farm equipment stuck and generally making seeding and harvesting harder.
Are messy fields really worse, though? Is there room for small wetlands in the field? The jury is still out, but new research suggests there may be value for farmers to conserve these potholes for native pollinators. Over 300 species of native bees call Alberta home. While we have barely scratched the surface of understanding these bees, scientists have discovered they’re in trouble. Several species are now categorized as Threatened or Endangered in Canada. In the big scheme of sustainability, this is a real problem, because pollinators paint our planet green. Plants equal food, and we all need to eat. Echoing a growing number of concerned ecologists, Dr. Jess Vickruck and Dr. Paul Galpern point out that the pollination services native bees provide are “crucial to the economy and food security of human populations, as well as playing a pivotal role in maintaining global biodiversity.”
This is the opening sentence of the peerreviewed paper Jess, Paul, and their research team of biologists published in Biological Conservation journal in January 2019. Titled “Pothole wetlands provide reservoir habitat for native bees in prairie croplands,” the paper is based on work they did with the help of four Alberta Conservation Association research grants awarded to their team from 2015 to 2019. Their study provides insight into the complex world of native bees, the small (< 1 hectares) depressed areas known as pothole wetlands within a field, and their potential effects on croplands and producers in the Prairie Pothole Region (PPR).