Western honeybee gathering pollen from a flower. Credit: Persia
Key Points:
- A study revealed insufficient wild pollinators will lead to a 3-5% loss of fruit, vegetable, and nut production.
- Loss of the healthy food from diets globally has led to an estimated 427,000 excess deaths annually.
- Study shows that neglecting to help pollinators thrive not only harms nature, but human health as well.
The first study to quantify the human health toll of insufficient wild (animal) pollinators on human health has shown that inadequate pollination leads to a 3-5% loss of fruit, vegetable, and nut production, and an estimated 427,000 excess deaths annually as a result of lost healthy food consumption and associated diseases.
“A critical missing piece in the biodiversity discussion has been a lack of direct linkages to human health. This research establishes that loss of pollinators is already impacting health on a scale with other global health risk factors, such as prostate cancer or substance use disorders,” said study author Samuel Myers, principal research scientist at Harvard University.
The study published in Environmental Health Perspectives reports the increasing human pressure on natural systems is causing alarming losses in biodiversity. This includes 1-2% annual declines of insect populations, leading some to warn of an impending “insect apocalypse” in the coming decades.
Among endangered insect species were pollinators, which increase crop yields and are critical to growing healthy foods like fruits, vegetables, and nuts. Changes in land-use, use of harmful pesticides, and advancing climate change threaten wild pollinators.
The researchers used a model framework to study hundreds of experimental farms across Asia, Africa, Europe and Latin America, and looked at “pollinator yield gaps” to show how much crop loss was due to insufficient pollination. They then used a global risk-disease model to estimate the health impacts the changes in pollination could have on dietary risks and mortality by country.
The results showed that lost food production was concentrated in lower-income countries but that the health burden was greater in middle-income countries including China, India, Indonesia and Russia.
This study revealed that neglecting to help pollinators thrive will not only harm nature, but human health as well.