Wild bees provide crop pollination services worth billions to the food system, according to a new study published last week in the journal Nature Communications. Pollination by wild bees contributes on average $3,251 per hectare per year to crop production, while pollination services by managed honeybee colonies are worth $2,913 a hectare. The international study team, which included researchers from the University of Reading, used data from 90 studies and 1,394 crop fields around the world, monitoring the activities of nearly 74,000 bees from more than 780 species. The scientists estimated the overall value of the bees by examining how heavily food crops depend on their pollination services to grow. They then looked at how much the sale of these produce contributes to the UK economy. They found that bees contribute £651 million (around $1 billion) to the UK economy a year, £150 million ($236 million) more than the Royal Family brings in through tourism. The figures show that the overall economic value of bees has increased by 191 per cent between 1996 and 2012. Almost 85% of the UK’s apple crop and 45% of strawberry plants rely on bees. Professor Simon Potts, director of the Centre for Agri-Environmental Research (CAER) at the University of Reading, said “Putting a cash value on ecosystem services is helpful to highlight to politicians and farmers just how important nature is to the bottom line.“ But he added that “thinking purely about today’s profits is pointless if it comes at the expense of the future sustainability of our countryside and our food supply.“ The scientists also found that most of the pollinating work was done by a handful of common species. Only 2% of wild bee species visited about 80% of bee-pollinated crops worldwide. However, conservation efforts should be targeted at a wider number of species - even those that currently contribute little to crop pollination - in order to maintain biodiversity and ensure future food security. “The few bee species that currently pollinate our crops are unlikely to be the same types we will need in the future,” said Professor Potts. „Human history is full of examples of food crises caused by an over-reliance on a single crop or a dwindling number of species.” (ab)