Staggering number of wild bee species unaccounted for since the ’90s
There has been an overwhelming drop in the number of wild bee species that are reported in public records over the past 30 years, according to a new study.
Researchers looked at bee records in the Global Biodiversity Information Facility, an online biodiversity data collector, and found there were about 25% less bee species reported between 2006 and 2015 compared to the 1990s.
Study author Eduardo Enrique Zattara, adjunct researcher at Argentina’s National Scientific and Technical Research Council, realized in 2018 that he could track the global population of bee species using the online data to see long-term trends of bee populations.
Last modified on Fri 22 Jan 2021 12.04 EST
The number of wild bee species recorded by an international database of life on Earth has declined by a quarter since 1990, according to a global analysis of bee declines.
Researchers analysed bee records from museums, universities and citizen scientists collated by the Global Biodiversity Information Facility, (GBIF) a global, government-funded network providing open-access data on biodiversity.
They found a steep decline in bee species being recorded since 1990, with approximately 25% fewer species reported between 2006 and 2015 than before the 1990s.
Although this does not mean these species are extinct, it may indicate that some have become so scarce that they are no longer regularly observed in the wild.