While wild pollinators play a key role in global food production, their assessment is currently missing from the most commonly used environmental impact assessment method, Life Cycle Assessment (LCA). This is mainly due to constraints in data availability and compatibility with LCA inventories. To target this gap, relative pollinator abundance estimates were obtained with the use of a Delphi assessment, during which 25 experts, covering 16 nationalities and 45 countries of expertise, provided scores for low, typical, and high expected abundance associated with 24 land use categories. Based on these estimates, this study presents a set of globally generic characterization factors (CFs) that allows translating land use into relative impacts to wild pollinator abundance. The associated uncertainty of the CFs is presented along with an illustrative case to demonstrate the applicability in LCA studies. The CFs based on estimates that reached consensus during the Delphi assessment are recommended as readily applicable and allow key differences among land use types to be distinguished. The resulting CFs are proposed as the first step for incorporating pollinator impacts in LCA studies, exemplifying the use of expert elicitation methods as a useful tool to fill data gaps that constrain the characterization of key environmental impacts.
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http://dx.doi.org/10.1021/acs.est.2c05311 | DOI Listing |
J Invertebr Pathol
December 2024
State Key Laboratory of Resource Insects, Chongqing Key Laboratory of Microsporidia Infection and Control, Southwest University, No. 2 Tiansheng Road, Chongqing 400715, PR China; Key Laboratory of Conservation and Utilization of Pollinator Insect of the Upper Reaches of the Yangtze River (Co-construction by Ministry and Province), Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, Chongqing Normal University, No. 37 University City Road, Chongqing 400047, PR China.
The Pacific white shrimp (Penaeus vannamei), one of the world's most economically important aquatic species, is highly susceptible to Ecytonucleospora hepatopenaei (EHP), a pathogen that infects the hepatopancreas and causes hepatopancreatic microsporidiosis (HPM), leading to stunted growth and substantial economic losses in shrimp farming. Currently, no effective treatments for EHP exist, making rapid on-site detection and preventive measures essential for disease control. While nucleic acid-based detection methods are commonly employed, they require specialized equipment, controlled environments, and trained personnel, which increase costs.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAn Acad Bras Cienc
December 2024
Universidade de Pernambuco, Laboratório de Interações Ecológicas e Semioquímicos (LIES), Campus Petrolina, Rodovia BR 203, Km 2, s/n, Vila Eduardo, 56328-900 Petrolina, PE, Brazil.
Night-blooming cacti, primarily pollinated by bats and hawkmoths, also attract beetles seeking food and safe shelter for mating and brooding their offspring. The influence of flower density on beetle visitation rates remains unclear, with responses varying by species and environmental factors. In the Caatinga Seasonally Dry Tropical Forest, we studied the flower occupancy distribution of two beetle species, Cyclocephala paraguayensis and Nitops aff.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFOecologia
December 2024
Cheadle Center for Biodiversity and Ecological Restoration, University of California, Harder South Building 578, Santa Barbara, CA, 93106, USA.
An animal's diet breadth is a central aspect of its life history, yet the factors determining why some species have narrow dietary breadths (specialists) and others have broad dietary breadths (generalists) remain poorly understood. This challenge is pronounced in herbivorous insects due to incomplete host plant data across many taxa and regions. Here, we develop and validate machine learning models to predict pollen diet breadth in bees, using a bee phylogeny and occurrence data for 682 bee species native to the United States, aiming to better understand key drivers.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBiol Lett
December 2024
Institute of Entomology, Biology Centre of the Czech Academy of Sciences, Ceske Budejovice, Czech Republic.
Recent reports of insect decline have raised concerns regarding population responses of ecologically important groups, such as insect pollinators. Additionally, how population trends vary across pollinator taxonomic groups and degree of specialization is unclear. Here, we analyse 14 years of abundance data (2009-2022) for 38 species of native insect pollinators, including a range of Coleoptera, Lepidoptera and Hymenoptera specialists and generalists from the tropical rainforest of Barro Colorado Island, Panama.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFNational Park Service units in the United States play a large role in providing habitat for native pollinators. In parks that are established to preserve cultural landscapes, park managers recognize an opportunity to improve pollinator habitat while maintaining historically accurate conditions. In this study, we document floral resources and native bees within managed park grasslands, with the goal of providing information to managers to help them maximize pollinator habitat while meeting other management objectives.
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