A newly published study from the Netherlands documents the ongoing loss of plant species that rely on pollination by insects and other creatures. This study, based on almost 90 years of data, sounds the alarm for biodiversity and food security.
Of course, this is not a surprise for many of us since it has been widely reported for decades that insect populations around the world have been declining.
"With this research, we show that there are also fewer and fewer plants dependent on those insects for pollination," said ecologist Kaixuan Pan, a doctoral student at Leiden University, where he studies the mechanisms for how land use and climate change affect biodiversity, and how to sustain biodiversity, especially in human-modified landscapes.
"The proportion of insect-pollinated plants has declined while that of wind-pollinated plants has increased."
Read more at forbes.com