Pollinators: what are they?

A pollinator is basically any animal that collects, transports and deposits pollen while moving from flower to flower in search of some conveniently placed incentive; usually food. While pollinators can be anything from birds through bats to lizards, in Ireland, our animal pollinators are insects.

Between our 20 Bombus species (bumblebees), 77 different solitary bees, and 1 domestic honey producing species, Ireland has almost 100 species of bee providing us with a lot of our pollination services. In addition, we also have 180 hoverflies, along with multiple moths, butter-and-regular flies, all making a contribution to Irish pollination.

Though that may sound like pollinators a plenty, both globally and at home these ecosystem servers are in decline. In the last number of decades, the populations of 42 Irish bee species have dropped by 50%. A third of Irish bees and 24% of European Bumble bees are Red Listed as at risk of extinction.

See you later pollinator.