pollinators

By Andrea Germanos Despite lower applied amounts of pesticides in U.S. agriculture, their toxicity to non-target species including honeybees more than doubled in a decade, according to a new study. The findings by a team of researchers from Germany’s University Koblenz-Landau were published Friday in the journal Science. “We have taken a large body of […]

By Daniel Raichel While many know Chicago as the “Second City,” the old stomping grounds of Michael Jordan or Al Capone, or perhaps even still as “Hog Butcher to the World,” I doubt many think of it as a home for endangered wildlife. However, as a recent Chicago Tribune article shows, that’s exactly what it […]

Americans take great pride in their lawns. A centuries-old practice adopted from Great Britain and Northern France, lawns have become a status symbol; a standard fixture of American communities. In the United States, more than 40 million acres of land are covered in grass, making it the single largest irrigated crop in the country, requiring […]

By Brian Lovett As winter phases into spring across the U.S., gardeners are laying in supplies and making plans. Meanwhile, as the weather warms, common garden insects such as bees, beetles and butterflies will emerge from underground burrows or nests within or on plants. Most gardeners know how beneficial insects can be for their plots. […]

The so-called murder hornet, known for its “excruciating” sting and ability to wipe out an entire bee-colony in just a few hours, is coming out of hibernation and scientists need help in eradicating them, VICE reported. Scientists in the U.S. and Canada announced a “war” against the murder hornet as it begins to establish its […]

Butterflies across the U.S. West are disappearing, and now researchers say the climate crisis is largely to blame. A new study published in Science on Thursday looked at three different data sets that cover the last 40 years of butterfly populations across more than 70 locations in the Western U.S. They found that butterfly populations […]

Australia is one of the most biodiverse countries in the world. It is home to more than 7% of all the world’s plant and animal species, many of which are endemic. One such species, the Pharohylaeus lactiferus bee, was recently rediscovered after spending nearly 100 years out of sight from humans. James B. Dorey, a […]

By DeWayne Shoemaker It’s almost impossible to imagine a world without chocolate. Yet cacao trees, which are the source of chocolate, are vulnerable. I am a passionate chocolate lover and an entomologist who studies cacao pollination. The crop’s sustainability currently appears to depend on several species of tiny fly pollinators, who are frankly struggling to […]