‘Crucial opportunity to act’ as study finds most of Europe’s wild bee species in decline

Most of Europe’s wild bee species and about half of its hover fly species have declined over the last century, a study has found, as a UN biodiversity summit begins in Armenia.

Records since 1921 show more bee species are declining than increasing in all parts of Europe except the Alpine region. The richness of bee and hover fly species suffered a persistent drop in the Atlantic and Continental regions, the study found, though trends in other regions were mixed or even positive.

The data, which covers 88% of bee and hover fly species across the continent, suggests pollinator communities have been reshaped by the “gradual loss of sensitive species and the rise of a resilient few”, according to the scientists. They warned of “deeper functional disruptions” if existing trends were not addressed.

Nearly 90% of wild flowering plants, as well as more than three-quarters of major food crop types, depend in part on animal pollination. The UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization has warned the decline of pollinators sets off a chain reaction that threatens wildlife and weakens the ability of ecosystems to withstand climate change and environmental stress.

Carlos Martínez-Núñez, an ecologist at the Spanish National Research Council and lead author of the study, said the findings showed that biodiversity loss could remain hidden behind apparently stable species numbers, “giving us a crucial opportunity to act before further declines occur”.

“The fact that some species are increasing today does not mean they will remain winners as climate change and habitat loss intensify,” he added.

The findings come as diplomats gather in Yerevan for the 17th UN conference on biodiversity. The summit, known as Cop17, will focus on the conservation and sustainable use of the natural world, and the shared benefits of its genetic resources.

The study found 91% of the species logged over the last century had also been recorded at least once in the modern period, between 2001 and 2020. Although this suggests as many as 9% of species could have been wiped out in Europe, many of the species not spotted recently occur only rarely in the historical record, and the researchers said they “do not expect widespread extinctions to have occurred yet”.

However, the species’ occupancy – the probability of being found at a given site – had mostly fallen.

Ainhoa ​​Magrach, an environmental researcher at the Basque Centre for Climate Change (BC3), who was not involved in the study, said it “confirms what has long been suspected: many pollinator species are losing populations, and the decline is not affecting all of them equally”.

“Until now, most of the evidence came from a few north-western European countries, such as the UK, Belgium and the Netherlands,” she said. “This work shows that the pattern extends across the continent, although some regional differences exist.”

Wildlife is dying out at an unprecedented rate as humans destroy habitats, spray pesticides, and warp the weather with planet-heating pollution. Despite far-reaching consequences for humanity, including threats to food systems and further breakdown of the climate, governments have not met a single UN target on nature since the biodiversity convention was created in Rio in 1992.

The Cop17 summit is expected to focus on assessing progress toward this decade’s targets, which include protecting 30% of land and sea, reforming $500bn (£375bn) of environmentally damaging subsidies and restoring 30% of the planet’s degraded ecosystems.