Talk:Pollinator decline

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Untitled
Pollinator, it is a good article, well researched, with abundant documentation, definitly on an important topic...but it is not npov at all :-(

What do you suggest ? Do you prefer I try to edit it, or may I suggest to you the biggest points so you can edit them yourself ? Anthère

I read the article very carefully (hopefully :-)).

Here are part of my feelings (only part, because I do not have a lot of time right now, so will come back to it later), so I just give my general feelings first.

When I read this article, I *know* it has been written either by a beekeeper, very likely, or perhaps by an environmentalist. That makes me think it is biased. That is essentially a general feeling, though some choice of words here and there might easily explain it.

I think the article would benefit of being slightly more structured, and probably that would reducing that feeling by making the article sounds more matter of factly.

Allow me to propose another view point. In ecology, there are three directions which are studied


 * the species itself, in this case, the article on pollinators is taking of that.


 * the organized activity of this species, essentially the fact pollinators allow reproduction of many flower plants. Again, mostly in the pollinator article I think. But, studying the activity also include watching what is happening in case population (for any reason) increases, or on the contrary, decreases : if the pollinators are less numerous, all flower plants for which pollinators are needed will likely be less numerous, and this has impact not only on agroecosystems, but on all the ecosystem at the same time. This is what is studied here but should be perhaps better identified in parts 1) observation of pollinator decline 2)consequences of the decline on all the ecosystem.


 * the environment of the pollinators activity, ie the consequences of environmental changes on the pollinators themselves (and consequently on their activity). In this case, this is mostly the end of the article : which changes in the environnement could explain or do explain pollinator decline.

So, I think the article should try

First, in the introduction, just to remind what is the role of the pollinators (and put a link on pollinators as well as on pollination); indicate their numbers have recently decreased; introduce most likely reasons for the decline; indicate what consequences it should have.

Then, the article, ihmo, should be much clearly divided in section

(in the current version, introduction and content are imho a bit mixed up)

Section 1 : observations around pollinators numbers declining. With a focus on facts, numbers.

Section 2 : Consequences of the decrease. Not only human related if possible. The fact that on top of it, needs have perhaps increased.

Section 3 : possible or recognised reasons why the numbers have decreased. I do not know whether Gaucho or Regent are sold under these brand names in US ? I do not know how these are received in US, but in France, it is likely they will be banned soon. Each reason should be as much as possible supported by facts or citations. Especially the part of pesticides

Section 4 : what is possible to do to avoid the decline to proceed any further, or to favour increase, or to limit detrimental consequences

Basically, I think all this information is already there, in the article, but just mixed.

One of the best thing we can do to limit pollinator decline is to teach people where problems rely, and which one can be avoided, while other may not. The clearer it is, the most efficient it will be. Imho :-)

Tell me what you think please Pollinator.


 * Yes I am a beekeeper (retired), who specialized in pollination of agricultural crops, so this is material I have lived. This gives me some insights, I think, but as you suggest, may make me too close to the subject. And keeping bees all those years made me become an environmentalist.


 * Imidacloprid (Gaucho, etc) is used in North America, and beekeepers are just starting to become aware of it. The losses of this and many other pesticides are so subtile that even many beekeepers do not recognize it. They just can't understand why the bees are doing so poorly.


 * just beginning ? Curious. There have been fights going on for quite a while now between in particular Bayer and beekeepers in France; last summer, Bayer filled a lawsuite against the president of the association of bee keepers because of this (the tribunal rejected the case). Just a couple of days ago, some french local governemental agency announced a moratoire on Gaucho for a whole department. I think we are not very far from it being made illegal :-) Anthère


 * Your ideas sound good and you definitely are knowledgeable. Why don't you just "have at it" and make the changes you think appropriate. I think I'll enjoy collaborating with you, Anthere. Meanwhile I'll be thinking on your points and developing some additional material that can also be added in. I agree that some of the points made do need quotes and figures. Pollinator 03:05, 16 Nov 2003 (UTC)


 * Nod, I will try; perhaps slowly and not immediately because I have some stuff cooking on the fire. Huge issue with a newly banned user on fr in particular :-( and the english article on ecology that I am trying to refactor from the one I wrote in french. That is why I made some following of links yesterday and found your articles on pollination. I think this bunch would make a great example for ecology, in particular in the introduction, where I tried to explain these three directions of ecological studies. Currently, I put an example that is hardly satisfying. I think the bees would be real nice there :-)


 * I would be very happy if you had more material, quotes, facts and such. I could find some for Europe perhaps. I will try to make the physical moves to show what I meant. I usually very little refactor other people work, not a good idea to replace good english with poor one :-) But I will really be happy to collaborate here with you and bring another perspective. I know little about bees though. I offer you two pictures...Image:Tournesol(L).jpg and Image:Hymenoptere(s).jpg (if you know its name, do not hesitate). anthere


 * Melissodes is my guess, but don't bet the farm on it, as I'm not an expert on taxonomy, and I've had those who ARE experts be unwilling to try to identify from photos....good pictures, though...


 * yes, I know, they always want the animal itself :-) but I just take picture :-)


 * If I can help on any bee stuff for the ecology example, I'd be glad to do so. BTW, I know it's hard to write in a second language, but you need not worry about it too much, as you do extremely well. Spanish is my second language, but I would not dare write anything without running it by a fluent Spanish speaker.


 * Thanks :-) well, I just try to do my best. Usually I write myself, but for the ecology article, I rely on real english speaking to translate, to be sure it is proper english; Imho, that is a central article, it must be done carefully.

I made some of the changes I suggested. Mostly reorganisation, moving some information here and there. Of course, there would be need to "glue" them now, but it also shows where it would be nice to add a bit. I started by slightly improving the alternative paragraph. I also made a new introduction. Has to be reworked though, but it allows to point out to a few important articles related to the topic. We should also add somehow Pollination management in the intro.

What do you think ?

---

Hello Pollinator,

Re (monoculture)

I am a bit embarassed by the reference to monoculture being dropped quickly aside of surface increase. There are two points in my opinion
 * the surfaces have increased => increase need for pollinator. That is straight
 * monoculture is more preeminent => does not necessary imply the total number of pollinator had to increase, but rather than some types of pollinators are more necessary than others, because more appropriate for one type of crop pollination. This may indicate the needs increased, but of only one type of pollinator. This might also explain why some pollinators less required disappeared. But in both cases, I think it is a point different enough from the increase of agricultural surfaces to be mentionned separately.

Do you see what I mean ? I am not sure I am clear ?


 * Sorry, Anthere, I don't. I'm confused. Can you explain more what you mean by "surfaces." Pollinator 01:01, 14 Dec 2003 (UTC)


 * I feared that :-( I meant agricultural surfaces (such as in hectares, or acres). More land cultivated than before. I will try to think of a way to change the article later.

Aside from this, we might improve some paragraphs about pesticides now :-)

PomPom


 * Yes, I'd like to see more on this, as it's a major environmental issue, but I am short of time at present, just ducking in now and then to see how things are going. I hope to have more time to spend on this after we finish moving, and get the holidays behind us.   :o)  Cheers  Pollinator 01:01, 14 Dec 2003 (UTC)


 * Yes. I will soon be on holidays, so far away (NO internet connection). And in january, I have to start searching for a house myself...good luck with the move...:-)

Hive destruction> Citation for sueing after wasp sting
There's a citation needed tag for the claim that people are increasingly more likely to sue beekeepers, even if it was a wasp sting. I've found this letter to the editor in NYT but I can't find the original article. Obviously one article isn't a trend, and further, it isn't clear whether the defendant was a beekeeper. However, perhaps the sentance could comment on the NYT headline mentioning bees despite the involvement of wasps. Keepstherainoff (talk) 10:34, 26 November 2010 (UTC)

Direction for article?
Found an interesting article today so just posting this here: http://www.minnpost.com/earth-journal/2015/03/marla-spivak-grasp-our-bees-plight-and-prospects-stay-focused-food

Not quite reliable for general claims, but quotes from one of the more well known bee researchers out there could be useful. With my entomologist hat on, she covers the status of the field pretty well. Taking it off, I'd rather find the sources behind what she's discussing before editing the article or other related ones. Either way, just posting it in case anyone gets any ideas for quotes that might be useable or just for ideas to pursue.

With all this in mind, it might be time to start refocusing the suite of bee/pollinator decline type articles to mesh them up better (a lot of things in the articles don't match up with what the science says). I'm still pondering what to do in other articles, but I'm happy to discuss any ideas other folks have. Kingofaces43 (talk) 20:38, 12 March 2015 (UTC)

Another source
Came across another source I'll just leave here for now: http://bip2.beeinformed.org/geo/. It's a very primary source as a survey of a beekeepers, so we would need to be careful about not attributing facts such as X% mortality occurred when it's based on a survey along with issues related to self-reporting. Synthesizing the data from the site would seem to go beyond WP:CALC at this point, but it looks like something worthwhile to continue checking out for summaries they may put out. Kingofaces43 (talk) 15:16, 29 March 2015 (UTC)

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Grist for your mill
I don't have time right now, or the commitment to this subject, but these two articles would be well worth extracting juicy bits for inclusion in the Consequences section. They're both more recent than the other sources for that section. Do Pollinators Contribute to Nutritional Health? Contribution of Pollinator-Mediated Crops to Nutrients in the Human Food Supply Jbening (talk) 18:55, 6 August 2017 (UTC)

More Sources/Information about "Possible Explanations" ?
The section “Possible Explanations” of this article obtains a lengthy paragraph about “Pesticide use,” and it is easy to notice that most of this section pertains to it. This could be the result of the statement that the decline in pollinators is an effect of the use of pesticides and insecticides, it could be merely coincidental. However, it could also be perceived as being over-represented in contrast to the other explanations. Even though the use of pesticides is a viable explanation, so are the other ones that are mentioned. The other probable causes of pollinator decline mentioned consist of one paragraph, while “Rapid transfer of parasites and diseases of pollinator species around the world” and “Changes in seasonal behavior due to global warming” consists of two sentences. This could be a result of there being insufficient references pertaining to these topics in their relevance to pollinator decline. For the purposes of furthering the article, it would be interesting to see if there is even more information about those other "Possible Explanations" of this phenomena.

This is not to say that the editors of this page have not done so, I am just curious. I did not see much of a discussion about the lack of information on the other probable causes of pollinator decline, so I wanted to know if others have found it difficult to find that information. I could also not have enough knowledge about this subject to know if pesticides take up so much of that section because they are the leading/main cause, or not. Cmennona95 (talk) 04:24, 9 November 2017 (UTC)

Inquiry about References
For the moderate length of this article, there are many references within it, 35 to be exact. For my observation, very statistic I saw was followed by a reference, as well as every fact and statement that needed some level of expertise that I noticed was supported by a reference. I even clicked on a few of the links and was satisfied by what I saw, in terms of the reference’s credibility. However, when it comes to topics like this one, I find it hard to tell if references are specifically for explanatory purposes. For instance, are the authors of those references that pertain to the role of pesticides in the decline of pollinators just explaining a facet of this phenomena or are they trying to eradicate the use of pesticides? It is sometimes difficult to determine the motives of authors, unless there is easily detectable evidence, like if they have any connection to specific interests groups. Furthermore, I could see that the words that were discipline-oriented were made into links that were explained and defined in other Wikipedia articles, which made it easy to make myself familiar with words and concepts I had no prior knowledge of.

The article is very well documented from what I could tell, which made the read easier to follow. Cmennona95 (talk) 04:31, 9 November 2017 (UTC)

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Potential Sources to add to Article
I plan on adding to this article, and here are some of the potential sources I intend to use, comments and suggestions are welcome:

Request for graphs
If there are any studies which visually show the decline of pollinators on a graph, those would be very useful for this page. Mapmaker345 (talk) 16:45, 30 October 2019 (UTC)

Effects of global warming related wind effecting bees, add?
It was reported February 2020, a study raised concerns the effects of global warming increases in frequency of high wind speeds so that bees and other flying pollinators may struggle. X1\ (talk) 23:15, 24 February 2020 (UTC)

Info too doubtful
35% of crop production depends on bees.

See List of most valuable crops and livestock products. Actual production is around 6%. Maybe they are talking about value? Leo Breman (talk) 10:49, 10 September 2020 (UTC)

Possible merge with Decline in insect populations
I only came across these two articles by chance and am not sure what's the best approach here, considering both articles are a couple of years old already. Could someone with more insight in this topic (and who's more familiar with the rules and guidelines in the English WP) have a look, please? Thanks! Tkarcher (talk) 08:15, 13 April 2022 (UTC)
 * I would find it doubtful a merge would be helpful. The insect article is a loose amalagam of random studies rather than an encyclopedic article still needing a lot of work, and this is about a very specific subset of insects and issues there. Often times it's already difficult to address the pollinator subject without focus, so it helps to keep it as a separate article. KoA (talk) 17:53, 13 April 2022 (UTC)