The survival of Europe’s wild pollinators is increasingly at risk, the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) said on Saturday as it declared dozens of bee and butterfly species as threatened.
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Almost all flowering plants in Europe depend on wild pollinators, particularly bees, but habitat loss and climate change have driven many vital species to the brink of extinction.
Nearly 100 additional types of wild bees have been classified as threatened in the most comprehensive evaluation of their status to date by the global authority on the state of the natural world.
At least 172 out of 1,928 assessed species of wild bees faced extinction in Europe compared with 77 in 2014, the latest update of the IUCN’s authoritative “Red List of Threatened Species” showed.
“Wild bee populations are in drastic decline and cannot be easily replaced by managed colonies,” said Denis Michez from the University of Mons, who led the wild bees research.
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“If wild bees disappear, many wild plants might be at risk too – of which flower-rich meadows and beautiful orchid species are just a few examples.”
Pollinators like bees and butterflies are lifelines for our health