科普知识学英语 野生昆虫数量减少影响农作物产量.docVIP

Researchers studying data from 600 fields in 20 countries have found that managed honey bees are not as successful at pollinating crops as wild insects, primarily wild bees, suggesting the continuing loss of wild insects in many agricultural landscapes has negative consequences for crop harvests. The study, which prompts an urgent call to maintain and managepollinator（传粉者）?diversity for long-term agricultural production, is published today in the journal Science. ? The 50 international researchers, including Lawrence Harder, professor in the Department of Biological Sciences in the Faculty of Science at the University of Calgary, analysed data from 41 crop systems around the world including fruits, seeds, nuts, and coffee to examine the consequences of having abundant wild pollinators for crop pollination. ? Our study demonstrates that production of many fruit and seed crops that make diets interesting, such as tomatoes, coffee and watermelon, is limited because their flowers are not adequately pollinated, says Harder. We also show that adding more honey bees often does not fix this problem, but that increased service by wild insects would help. ? Flowers of most crops need to receive pollen before making seeds and fruits, a process that is enhanced by insects that visit flowers. These pollinators, including bees, flies, butterflies and beetles, usually live in natural or semi-natural habitats, such as the edges of forests,hedgerows（灌木篱强）?or grasslands. As these habitats are lost, primarily owing to conversion to agriculture, the abundance and diversity of pollinators decline and crops receive fewer visits from wild insects. ? The study found that the proportion of flowers producing fruits was considerably lower in sites with fewer wild insects visiting crop flowers. Therefore, the reduction of wild insects in agricultural landscapes will likely impact both our natural heritage and agricultural harvest. ? Paradoxically, most common approaches to increase agricult