Wild insect diversity increases inter-annual stability in global crop pollinator communities.

While an increasing number of studies indicate that the range, diversity and abundance of many wild pollinators has declined, the global area of pollinator-dependent crops has significantly increased over the last few decades. Crop pollination studies to date have mainly focused on either identifying different guilds pollinating various crops, or on factors driving spatial changes and turnover observed in these communities. The mechanisms driving temporal stability for ecosystem functioning and services, however, remain poorly understood. Our study quantifies temporal variability observed in crop pollinators in 21 different crops across multiple years at a global scale. Using data from 43 studies from six continents, we show that (i) higher pollinator diversity confers greater inter-annual stability in pollinator communities, (ii) temporal variation observed in pollinator abundance is primarily driven by the three-most dominant species, and (iii) crops in tropical regions demonstrate higher inter-annual variability in pollinator species richness than crops in temperate regions. We highlight the importance of recognizing wild pollinator diversity in agricultural landscapes to stabilize pollinator persistence across years to protect both biodiversity and crop pollination services. Short-term agricultural management practices aimed at dominant species for stabilizing pollination services need to be considered alongside longer term conservation goals focussed on maintaining and facilitating biodiversity to confer ecological stability.

Seasonal dynamics of plant pollinator networks in agricultural landscapes: how important is connector species identity in the network?

Farm habitat enrichment is crucial for sustainable production of pollinator-dependent crops. Correct choice of crop and non-crop plant species in habitat management support resilient pollinator fauna and effective pollination service delivery. We identify key network metrices to recognize suitable crop and non-crop plant species for farm habitat enrichment. We also highlight the importance of seasonal variation of the key plant and pollinator species that will crucially inform farm management. Crop species played a key role in maintaining plant-pollinator network integrity. In contrast to the conventional practice of focussing on non-crop plants for pollination service restoration, we find crop plants across seasons hold a key role in maintaining healthy plant-pollinator networks. Our study highlights the importance of non-bee pollinators especially, flies and butterflies in sustaining healthy plant-pollinator network. Bees were important as connector species and controlled other species in the network. Only 16.67% bees and 33.33% of plant species acted as connector species. Our study also shows that the identity of connector species in a plant-pollinator network can change drastically across seasons.

Field Populations of Wild Apis cerana Honey Bees Exhibit Increased Genetic Diversity Under Pesticide Stress Along an Agricultural Intensification Gradient in Eastern India.

Pesticides have been reported to be one of the major drivers in the global pollinator losses. The large-scale decline in honey bees, an important pollinator group, has resulted in comprehensive studies on honey bee colonies. Lack of information on native wild pollinators has paved the way for this study, which highlights the underlying evolutionary changes occurring in the wild honey bee populations exposed to pesticides along an agricultural intensification landscape. The study reports an increased genetic diversity in native Apis cerana Fabricius (Hymenoptera: Apidae) populations continually exposed to pesticide stress. An increased heterozygosity, evidenced by a higher electrophoretic banding pattern, was observed in the pesticide-exposed populations for two isozymes involved with xenobiotic metabolism-esterase and glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase. Differential banding patterns also revealed a higher percentage of polymorphic loci, number of polymorphic bands, Nei's genetic distance, etc. observed in these populations in the Randomly Amplified Polymorphic DNA-Polymerase Chain Reaction (RAPD-PCR) experiments using three random decamer primers. Higher heterozygosity, being indicative of a more resistant population, implies population survival within the threshold pesticide stress. This study reports such changes for the first time in native wild Indian honey bee populations exposed to pesticides and has far-reaching implications on the population adaptability under pesticide stress.

A global-scale expert assessment of drivers and risks associated with pollinator decline.

Pollinator decline has attracted global attention and substantial efforts are underway to respond through national pollinator strategies and action plans. These policy responses require clarity on what is driving pollinator decline and what risks it generates for society in different parts of the world. Using a formal expert elicitation process, we evaluated the relative regional and global importance of eight drivers of pollinator decline and ten consequent risks to human well-being. Our results indicate that global policy responses should focus on reducing pressure from changes in land cover and configuration, land management and pesticides, as these were considered very important drivers in most regions. We quantify how the importance of drivers and risks from pollinator decline, differ among regions. For example, losing access to managed pollinators was considered a serious risk only for people in North America, whereas yield instability in pollinator-dependent crops was classed as a serious or high risk in four regions but only a moderate risk in Europe and North America. Overall, perceived risks were substantially higher in the Global South. Despite extensive research on pollinator decline, our analysis reveals considerable scientific uncertainty about what this means for human society.

Pesticide induced visual abnormalities in Asian honey bees (Apis cerana L.) in intensive agricultural landscapes.

Pesticide stress is one of the important factors for global bee declines. Apart from physiological and developmental anomalies, pesticides also impose cognitive damages on bees. The present study investigates the visual acuity of wild populations of honey bees, in an agricultural intensification landscape, and corroborates the findings with controlled laboratory experiments. Even though overall morphometric examinations revealed no significant differences between the populations, correct color choices by bees in pesticide exposed populations were significantly reduced. The study reports, for the first time, the significant reduction in ommatidia facet diameter in these populations, as viewed under scanning electron microscope, along with the molecular underpinnings to these findings. Western blot studies revealed a significant reduction in expression of two visual proteins - blue-sensitive opsin and rhodopsin - in the pesticide exposed populations in both field and laboratory conditions. The novel findings from this study form the basis for further investigations into the effects of field realistic doses of multiple pesticide exposures on wild populations of honey bees.

Description of a new species of Rhabdias Stiles and Hassall, 1905 (Nematoda: Rhabdiasidae) from Western Himalayan foothills (Uttarakhand), India.

Rhabdias garhwalensis sp. nov. from the lungs of Duttaphrynus himalayanus (Günther, 1864) collected in Kimoi Tehsil, district Tehri Garhwal (Uttarakhand), India is described and illustrated. Rhabdias garhwalensis sp. nov. represents the 15th species described from the Oriental zoogeographical zone and the 9th species from India. The new species is differentiated from the closely related Oriental species in having 6 lips, cup-shaped buccal cavity with muscular striations in the posterior region and smaller esophagus to body length ratio. In addition to the new species, a second species, Cosmocercoides bufonis Karve, 1944, was found in the large intestine of D. himalayanus.

Scale dependent drivers of wild bee diversity in tropical heterogeneous agricultural landscapes.

Factors associated with agricultural intensification, for example, loss of seminatural vegetation and pesticide use has been shown to adversely affect the bee community. These factors may impact the bee community differently at different landscape scales. The scale dependency is expected to be more pronounced in heterogeneous landscapes. However, the scale-dependent response of the bee community to drivers of its decline is relatively understudied, especially in the tropics where the agricultural landscape is often heterogeneous. This study looked at effects of agricultural intensification on bee diversity at patch and landscape scales in a tropical agricultural landscape. Wild bees were sampled using 12 permanent pan trap stations. Patch and landscape characteristics were measured within a 100 m (patch scale) and a 500 m (landscape scale) radius of pan trap stations. Information on pesticide input was obtained from farmer surveys. Data on vegetation cover, productivity, and percentage of agricultural and fallow land (FL) were collected using satellite imagery. Intensive areas in a bee-site network were less specialized in terms of resources to attract rare bee species while the less intensive areas, which supported more rare species, were more vulnerable to disturbance. A combination of patch quality and diversity as well as pesticide use regulates species diversity at the landscape scale (500 m), whereas pesticide quantity drove diversity at the patch scale (100 m). At the landscape scale, specialization of each site in terms of resources for bees increased with increasing patch diversity and FL while at the patch scale specialization declined with increased pesticide use. Bee functional groups responded differentially to landscape characteristics as well as pesticide use. Wood nesting bees were negatively affected by the number of pesticides used but other bee functional groups were not sensitive to pesticides. Synthesis and Applications: Different factors affect wild bee diversity at the scale of landscape and patch in heterogeneous tropical agricultural systems. The differential response of bee functional groups to agricultural intensification underpins the need for guild-specific management strategies for wild bee conservation. Less intensively farmed areas support more rare species and are vulnerable to disturbance; consequently, these areas should be prioritized for conservation to maintain heterogeneity in the landscape. It is important to conserve and restore seminatural habitats to maintain complexity in the landscapes through participatory processes and to regulate synthetic chemical pesticides in farm operations to conserve the species and functional diversity of wild bees.

Field populations of native Indian honey bees from pesticide intensive agricultural landscape show signs of impaired olfaction.

Little information is available regarding the adverse effects of pesticides on natural honey bee populations. This study highlights the detrimental effects of pesticides on honey bee olfaction through behavioural studies, scanning electron microscopic imaging of antennal sensillae and confocal microscopic studies of honey bee brains for calcium ions on Apis cerana, a native Indian honey bee species. There was a significant decrease in proboscis extension response and biologically active free calcium ions and adverse changes in antennal sensillae in pesticide exposed field honey bee populations compared to morphometrically similar honey bees sampled from low/no pesticide sites. Controlled laboratory experiments corroborated these findings. This study reports for the first time the changes in antennal sensillae, expression of Calpain 1(an important calcium binding protein) and resting state free calcium in brains of honey bees exposed to pesticide stress.