Get the latest tech news How to check Is Temu legit? How to delete trackers
TECH
Bees

What if all bumblebees went extinct? We'd be in 'a world of trouble'

Doyle Rice
USA TODAY

For the first time, a bumblebee has been placed on the endangered species list. But what if they went extinct?

Well, if you like to eat, you should worry about bumblebees — they're the most important insect pollinators of a variety of crops like cranberries, blueberries and tomatoes, according to Clay Bolt of the World Wildlife Fund.

In fact, one out of every three bites of food you eat has been helped along in some way by bees, said Rebecca Riley of the Natural Resources Defense Council.

According to the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization, 90% of the world’s food supply comes from about 100 crop species and 71 of those crops (especially fruits and vegetables) rely on bees for pollination. In the U.S., bee activities generate $15 billion a year, the World Wildlife Fund said. This includes "domesticated" bees such as honeybees. Bumblebees are considered "wild" bees.

Bumblebees also pollinate a broad range of native plants that play a vital role in numerous ecosystems, Bolt said. He said that "if all bumblebees disappeared it is highly likely that we would feel the ripples of their loss, in terms of the foods we eat, the loss of economic benefits, and the general integrity of the natural world."

"Everything in nature is connected as a result of millions of years of evolution," Bolt added. "Take away a bee and what happens to the flowers that depend on them, or the birds that eat the seeds from those flowers, the raptors that eat those seed-eating birds, and the fish that rely on stands of pollinated plants to filter ground water?"

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service earlier this week placed the rusty patched bumblebee on the endangered species list because the population has declined by 90% in the past 20 years, Riley said. The main threats to the bee are habitat loss, pesticides and disease, she added. The bee "can't sustain the kind of losses we're seeing," she said.

The rusty patched bumblebee is now the first bee of any type in the continental U.S. to receive the endangered species designation. In September, the Obama administration designated seven species of bees in Hawaii as endangered.

Trump relents: Bumblebee to be listed as endangered species

Unfortunately, the rusty-patched bumblebee's dramatic decline is only the tip of the iceberg for the loss of North American bumblebee species. One out of every four species of bumblebee on the continent is at risk of extinction, according to The Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation.

Other bumblebees that are being evaluated for listing as an endangered species include the yellow banded bumblebee, the Western bumblebee and Franklin’s bumblebee, Riley of the NRDC said.

What's good news, she said, is that the actions taken to protect the rusty patched bumblebee should also help protect other species. Butterflies and birds will also be helped.

More 'What happens ...' 

What happens when you don't use a toilet seat cover?

What would happen if you didn’t brush your teeth for a year?

What would happen if you were hit by a penny falling from a skyscraper?

What happens if you don't sleep for 24 hours? You're basically drunk

So could all bees go extinct? It's unlikely, Bolt noted, as there are 4,000 known species of bees in North America alone and about 20,000 species worldwide. "But if all bees did disappear, we'd all be in a world of trouble," he said. "The variety of foods would be incredibly reduced and who could even predict how their loss would ripple throughout the world's many ecosystems."

People can help boost the rusty patched bumblebee population by growing a garden or adding a native flowering tree or shrub to yards and minimizing pesticide use, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said.

Leaving some areas of the yard unmowed in summer and unraked in fall can also help since bumblebees need a safe place to build their nests and overwinter. Additionally, try leaving some standing plant stems in gardens and flower beds in winter, the agency suggested.

The extinction of the rusty patched bumblebee "would mean the loss of an incredibly beautiful animal that shouldn't need justification for protection," Bolt said. "It has arrived at this point in the history of the world because it has survived the trials and tribulations of life's many challenges."

"For that alone, it has earned the right to survive on its own merit," he said. "All leading evidence for the causes of the rusty patched bumblebee's decline points to the results of human activity. The least we can do is offer it a fighting chance for recovery."

Featured Weekly Ad