OOS 83

Bees Across Urban Environments: Social and Ecological Forces

Recent studies across the United States and Europe have shown that the populations of many pollinators, especially bees, are in decline. Declines of honeybees and North American native bees have been reported over the past decade (Grixti et al. 2009, Williams and Osborne 2009, Winfree et al. 2009). The status of native bees is not well understood, and according to some has already reached a crisis stage (Dixon 2009). The dire lack of data is perhaps best described by the National Academy of Sciences (2007) in a recent report on the status of pollinators “…the paucity of long-term data and the incomplete knowledge of even basic taxonomy and ecology make the definitive assessment of status exceedingly difficult.” The importance of pollinators to food security is such that this past summer the President of the United States established an executive strategy for the conservation of pollinators nationwide (Presidential Memorandum of June 20, 2014). As of 2010 more than 50% (~3.5 billion) of the World’s population live in cities. This proportion will grow to 65% by the middle of this century when the human population is expected to reach 9 billion (Millennium Ecosystem Assessment 2005). This increase in urban density, and total population, is placing tremendous stress on all types of ecosystem services. Paradoxically, a large proportion of these cities are shrinking in their core, e.g., Detroit, MI. In fact, worldwide more than 370 cities are considered shrinking (losing more than 1% of the population per year for more than 10 years; Hollander 2011), and of those 92 are in the United States. This shrinkage has had tremendous repercussions to social, political and economic processes, and has left a legacy of inequality and environmental injustice. Policies that address “smart shrinking” are lagging greatly behind the depopulation trends. This also lends itself to tremendous opportunities for understanding ecological processes in a new context (Haase 2013). Worldwide, city planners and decision makers, as well as local communities, are placing increased emphasis on growing food locally in order to maintain and enhance food security. Yet little is known about pollination services or pollinator diversity and abundance in urban environments, especially in cities with shrinking cores. Presenters in this session will address these, and other topics ranging from individual research studies, proposed model systems for urban bee studies, as well as meta-analysis and synthesis resulting from a working group at the National Social-Environmental Synthesis Center.