Dwindling bee population poses malnutrition risk

More than half the people in some developing countries could be at risk for malnutrition if crop-pollinating species, such as bees, continue to decline, a new study claims.
Scientists at the University of Vermont and Harvard University connected what people actually eat in four developing countries to the pollination requirements of the crops that provide their food and nutrients.
"Pollinator declines can really matter to human health, with quite scary numbers for vitamin A deficiencies, for example, which can lead to blindness and increase death rates for some diseases, including malaria," said UVM scientist Taylor Ricketts who co-led the study.

It is not just plummeting populations of bees. Scientists around the world have observed a worrisome decline of many pollinator species, threatening the world's food supply.
Recent studies have shown that these pollinators are responsible for up to forty per cent of the world's supply of nutrients, researchers said.
The new research shows that in some populations - like parts of Mozambique that the team studied, where many children and mothers are barely able to meet their needs for micronutrients, especially vitamin A - the disappearance of pollinators could push as many as 56 per cent of people over the edge into malnutrition.

The "hidden hunger" associated with vitamin and mineral deficiencies is estimated to harm more than 1 in 4 people around the globe, the scientists note, contributing to increased risk of many diseases, reduced IQ and diminished work productivity.

"Continued declines of pollinator populations could have drastic consequences for global public health," researchers said.
"This is the first study that quantifies the potential human health impacts of animal pollinator declines," said Samuel Myers at the Harvard School of Public Health.
The study examined the full pathway from pollinators through to detailed survey data about people's daily diets in parts of Zambia, Mozambique, Uganda and Bangladesh.

The scientists were able to examine the likely impact a future without pollinators would have on these diets.
And for parts of the developing world, that future could well include "an increase in neural tube defects from folate deficiency or an increase in blindness and infectious diseases from vitamin A deficiency because we have transformed our landscapes in ways that don't support animal pollinators anymore," Myers said.
"We find really alarming effects in some countries for some nutrients and little to no effect elsewhere," said Ricketts.
The research appears in the journal PLOS ONE.