By facilitating plant reproduction, pollinators perform a crucial ecological function that supports the majority of the world's plant diversity, and associated organisms, and a significant fraction of global agriculture Thus, pollinators are simultaneously vital to supporting both natural ecosystems and human food security, which is a unique position for such a diverse group of organisms The past two decades have seen unprecedented interest in pollinators and pollination ecology, stimulated in part by concerns about the decline of pollinator abundance and diversity in some parts of the world This review synthesizes what is currently understood about the taxonomic diversity of organisms that are known to act as pollinators; their distribution in both deep time and present space; the importance of their diversity for ecological function (including agro-ecology); changes to diversity and abundance over more recent timescales, including introduction of non-native species; and a discussion of arguments for 

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Pollinator Diversity: Distribution, Ecological Function, and Conservation

Climate change could increase species' extinction risk as temperatures and precipitation begin to exceed species' historically observed tolerances. Using long-term data for 66 bumble bee species across North America and Europe, we tested whether this mechanism altered likelihoods of bumble bee species' extinction or colonization. Increasing frequency of hotter temperatures predicts species' local extinction risk, chances of colonizing a new area, and changing species richness. Effects are independent of changing land uses. The method developed in this study permits spatially explicit predictions of climate change-related population extinction-colonization dynamics within species that explains observed patterns of geographical range loss and expansion across continents. Increasing frequencies of temperatures that exceed historically observed tolerances help explain widespread bumble bee species decline. This mechanism may also contribute to biodiversity loss more generally.

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Climate change contributes to widespread declines among bumble bees across continents.

Impacts of climate change on individual species are increasingly well documented, but we lack understanding of how these effects propagate through ecological communities. Here we combine species distribution models with ecological network analyses to test potential impacts of climate change on >700 plant and animal species in pollination and seed-dispersal networks from central Europe. We discover that animal species that interact with a low diversity of plant species have narrow climatic niches and are most vulnerable to climate change. In contrast, biotic specialization of plants is not related to climatic niche breadth and vulnerability. A simulation model incorporating different scenarios of species coextinction and capacities for partner switches shows that projected plant extinctions under climate change are more likely to trigger animal coextinctions than vice versa. This result demonstrates that impacts of climate change on biodiversity can be amplified via extinction cascades from plants to animals in ecological networks.

Ecological networks are more sensitive to plant than to animal extinction under climate change

Bumble bees (Bombus) are unusually important pollinators, with approximately 260 wild species native to all biogeographic regions except sub-Saharan Africa, Australia, and New Zealand. As they are ...

Global Trends in Bumble Bee Health.

Climate change will pose diverse challenges for pollination this century. Identifying and addressing these challenges will help to mitigate impacts, and avoid a scenario whereby plants and pollinators are in the ‘wrong place at the wrong time’.

Climate change impacts on pollination

Bumble bees represent one of the most important groups of pollinators. In addition to their ecological and economic relevance , they are also a highly charismatic group which can help to increase the interest of people in realizing, enjoying and conserving natural systems. However, like most animals, bum-ble bees are sensitive to climate. In this atlas, maps depicting potential risks of climate change for bumble bees are shown together with informative summary statistics, ecological background information and a picture of each European species. Thanks to the EU FP7 project STEP, the authors gathered over one million bumblebee records from all over Europe. Based on these data, they modelled the current climatic niche for almost all European species (56 species) and projected future climatically suitable conditions using three climate change scenarios for the years 2050 and 2100. While under a moderate change scenario only 3 species are projected to be at the verge of extinction by 2100, 14 species are at high risk under an intermediate change scenario. Under a most severe change scenario as many as 25 species are projected to lose almost all of their climatically suitable area, while a total of 53 species (77% of the 69 European species) would lose the main part of their suitable area. Climatic risks for bumblebees can be extremely high, depending on the future development of human society, and the corresponding effects on the climate. Strong mitigation strategies are needed to preserve this important species group and to ensure the sustainable provision of pollination services, to which they considerably contribute. On the front cover: Bombus hyperboreus, an Arctic bumblebee species that is threatened by global warming

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Climatic Risk and Distribution Atlas of European Bumblebees

Hymenoptera Apoidea Gallica: liste des abeilles sauvages de Belgique, France, Luxembourg et Suisse

L’inventaire des Abeilles sauvages du departement de l’Aveyron s’eleve actuellement a 199 especes, dont 67 Apidae (31 Bombus, 21 Anthophorini, 9 Xylocopini, 4 Melectini, 2 Nomadini), 47 Halictidae, 38 Megachilidae, 40 Andrenidae, 7 Colletidae et 2 Dasypodaidae. Cinquante-sept especes nouvelles pour ce departement ont ete inventoriees au cours de la derniere decennie. Quatre-vingt-dix especes n’ont pas ete reinventoriees lors des recentes prospections. Pour chaque espece peu frequemment collectee, un inventaire reprenant les localites d’observations, les dates ou periodes de recoltes, les plantes visitees, le nombre et le sexe des individus collectes, a ete redige. La comparaison de la faune des Abeilles sauvages de l’Aveyron a celle des etudes disponibles en region Ouest-Palearctique revele la presence d’une certaine richesse specifique dans ce departement. Une diminution de la diversite des Bourdons est cependant constatee sur la zone etudiee.

Gilles Mahé

Papers

Climatic Risk and Distribution Atlas of European Bumblebees

Hymenoptera Apoidea Gallica: liste des abeilles sauvages de Belgique, France, Luxembourg et Suisse

Contribution à l’inventaire des Abeilles sauvages du département de l’Aveyron (France) (Hymenoptera, Apoidea)