Multiple flowers are at risk of extinction by five species of pollinators native to Canada and the United States, new research suggests.
Factors behind the increased risk include changes in land use, growth of invasive plant species, pesticide exposure, climate change, disease, hydrology and modifications to the fire regime.
“Pollenators are important, but many are declining,” the study reads.
“We assessed the risk of extinction for nearly 1,600 vertebrate and insect pollinators and found that five species are at risk of extinction.”
This study evaluated 1,579 species of the most widely studied pollination groups. It was co-authored by 15 field experts, including Canadian zoologist John Clymeco.
Related Stories
Bees are the most at-risk insect group, and in this study almost 35% of the 472 species are classified as such. Meanwhile, almost 20% of butterfly species and 16% of MOTH species also face risk.
Of the species tested, 10 bees, 11 butterflies and two moth species were classified as “very at risk.”
The report identifies leaf fuzz and digging bees as two most threatened species of honeybee, with nearly half the population at risk. However, compared to some non-porinsFor example, honeybees and honeybees are less risky than freshwater or terrestrial mollusks.
Other pollinator insects face 12.5%, with almost 15% of risks such as flower flies and slightly lower risks such as beetles. All three bat species evaluated are at risk of extinction, but none of the 17 hummingbird species studied were found.
The report points out that pollinated insects donate more than $15 billion in value per year to North American agriculture, along with nectar-eating bats and hummingbirds, are key to ecosystems.
Almost all of the 1,600 assessed pollinators except 19 are found in the US where the percentage of risk is consistent with trends across North America. In Canada, the risky percentage is 10.2% lower. This is because only 759 of the species surveyed are within the Canadian range.
California is the jurisdiction with the highest pollinator diversity, followed by 678 species, followed by Arizona and Texas. In Canada, the state with the highest pollinator diversity was British Columbia, with 487 species.
Research shows that at-risk pollinator species were most likely to be found in forests, grasslands, plantings, or chaparral habitats. They were least likely to live in forests and alpine or tundra habitats.
The threat to pollinators varies from region to region. Agriculture and climate change were the main drivers of Rocky Mountain and the Great Plains, but climate change was the biggest threat in North and West North America, the report says. In the eastern US, pollution, urban development and agriculture pose the greatest risks.
The authors said the study was the “largest, most taxonomically diverse” study of pollinators in Canada and the US, including two classes of vertebrate animals and four insect orders.
The evaluation was conducted between 2013 and 2025.
