A bumblebee gathers pollen from a cherry blossom in a garden outside Moscow.
Yuri Kadobnov/AFP/Getty Images
Here’s an exercise in deductive logic, with implications for our food supply.
Fact: Insects such as bees and butterflies are helpful, and sometimes essential, for producing much of our food, including a majority of our fruits, vegetables and nuts.
Fact: Many of these pollinators, especially wild ones such as bumblebees, are in trouble. In Europe, where the phenomenon has been studied most carefully, about a third of all bee and butterfly species are declining, and 9 percent are threatened with extinction.
The seemingly logical conclusion? Food production will decline along with the pollinators.
<img src="http://media.npr.org/assets/img/2015/07/09/gettyimages-475398808_sq-5a183065fe38d0f400ccd91d2a6cc60fa0c62819-s100.jpg" class="img100" title="A bumblebee collects pollen from a flower. New evidence suggests climate change has left bumblebees with a shrinking range of places to live."…