Boosting bee diversity can help stabilise crop production – new research
There are over 20,000 bee species and together they help pollinate more than 75% of the world’s leading food crops. Honeybees tend to hog the limelight, but few realise how important diversity is to this process. Having lots of different species of pollinating insects on farmland can lead to better crop yields, while crops attended by fewer species tend to set less fruit and produce fewer seeds. For food systems to maintain a stable output each year, farms need pollinator numbers to remain stable too. But the abundance of these insects can fluctuate from one year to the next, so what’s n...
Source: theconversation.com