Associate Professor Northern Arizona University Flagstaff, Arizona
Pollinator conservation is one of the most intersectional environmental issues today, central to food security and biodiversity preservation alike. Declines in pollinator diversity have been recorded in all habitat types and geographical regions. Drivers of declines include pesticides, habitat loss, disease, climate change, and non-native species. At the same time, non-native species play important roles in pollination under some circumstances. Non-native plants (including agricultural crops) supply forage to native pollinators. Non-native pollinators may visit and transport pollen for native plants. These novel interactions between native and non-native species are likely to be of particular importance in novel ecosystems wherein native species have been lost or have experienced population declines as a result of environmental change. Non-native species in pollination networks may represent social values or practices such as agriculture, with the result that conservation of pollinator communities requires tradeoffs to meet diverse objectives.
