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From:
Peter Loring Borst <[log in to unmask]>
Reply To:
Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology <[log in to unmask]>
Date:
Wed, 4 Mar 2015 19:25:35 -0500
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Here is another study questioning the conclusions voiced in the Pollinator Act:

Growing evidence indicates that human-induced changes to the environment may have widespread consequences for human health. A common conclusion is that a decline in pollinator populations could have a "potentially drastic effect on human nutrition". Despite these estimates and the extensive media coverage of the issue, no studies to date have tested this nutrition claim empirically. While pollinators improve yields for crops that contribute nutrients to the food supply, the role that pollinated crops actually play in the nutritional health of individuals and populations remains unclear. 

Our results suggest a highly variable but important role for pollinators in human nutrition in the developing world. In four countries and across five nutrients, we found that 0 to 56% of populations would become newly at risk of nutritional deficiency if pollinators were removed. The importance of pollinators to human nutrition therefore depends critically on the composition of local diets, and cannot be reliably predicted from global commodity analyses.

Although this study provides an important first step in understanding the importance of pollinators for nutritional health, we made several simplifying assumptions that must be considered when interpreting our results. First, we assumed a complete removal of pollinators, a possible but unlikely scenario given current trends in pollinator abundance. Second, we assumed that individuals would not compensate for reduced intake by altering their diets or substituting other foods. This is also unlikely, but substitutes would probably be less pollinator-dependent than the foods they replace.

Of course, the potential health effects of ecosystem change extend far beyond pollination. Forest clearing and other development activities, for example, have caused water pollution, increased exposure to vector-borne disease, and reduced access to nutritious foods found in forested areas.

Ellis, A. M., Myers, S. S., & Ricketts, T. H. (2015). Do pollinators contribute to nutritional health?. PloS one, 10(1), e114805.

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