The Symposium announcement says:

"A steady decline in pollinator species has been noted for decades.
Additionally, the increasing loss of honey bee colonies suffered by
the commercial beekeepers that provide pollination services to
commercial growers indicates that many food supplies are imperiled."

However, to my knowledge there are no specific examples of farming
areas in the USA where honeybees, hoverflies, wasps, bumblebees,
moths and butterflies are now rare or have declined to the point of
deminishing crop yields. In the USA, crop yield statistics are available
by State and County:
here: http://www.nass.usda.gov/Data_and_Statistics/index.asp
I'm not aware of any cases of declining yields in any State
or County due to declines in pollinator diversity or abundance.

Also, the academics and pollinator groups fail to explain how their
studies and efforts will ever mitigate / reverse the alledged pollinator
declines that are occuring on a landscape scale. In other words,
if there is actually an ongoing trend of pollinator decline that is
occurring on a landscape scale then to reverse this trend land
management practices would have to be changed on a landscape scale.
But so far I havn't seen the academics or pollinator groups propose
landscape scale land management changes that would be logistically
feasible and financially affordable to implement, hence the pollinator
declines will continue.

Paul Cherubini
El Dorado, Calif.

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