Pollinator and Civilizational Collapse

Why. And how it will crush us.

Photo by Dmitry Grigoriev on Unsplash

The following is a dispassionate look of the collapse of pollinators and the impact to food security. This is a serious problem, but probably not in the way you expect. On its own, this issue is a human health crisis. That means more deaths and sickness from malnutrition. However, this is happening at the same time as the rest of the poly-crisis. When combined with the risk of breadbasket collapse from global droughts, heating and atmospheric rivers, pollinator deaths amplifies the risk of widespread famine and civilizational collapse.

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Pollinators – including honeybees, native wild bees, butterflies, moths, flies, beetles, birds, and bats – are crucial for ecosystems and agriculture. An estimated 75% of the world’s food crop and wild flowering plant species depend to some extent on animal pollination. Yet pollinator populations are in global decline, raising alarms for biodiversity, agriculture, and nutrition.

Many insect pollinators are in serious decline globally. A 2019 global review warned that over 40% of insect species are in decline and one-third are endangered, with a total insect biomass loss of about 2.5% per year. At this rate, some scientists cautioned insects could vanish within a century, leading to a catastrophic collapse of nature’s ecosystems.

While not all insect groups are equally studied, numerous regional surveys corroborate a downward trend. In Europe, for example, butterfly populations have dropped significantly – average butterfly counts in parts of the Netherlands fell almost 50% since 1991, and grassland butterfly populations across 17 European countries declined ~25% between 1991 and 2017.

Wild bees (such as bumblebees and solitary bees) show similar patterns: many species in North America and Europe have seen steep declines or range contractions in the past few decades. The European Union reports that 1 in 3 species of bees, butterflies, and hoverflies is in decline, and 1 in 10 is on the verge of extinction. These losses in insect pollinators are especially concerning because insects perform the majority of pollination services for crops and wild plants.

Honeybee Colony Losses

Honeybees (especially the domesticated western honeybee Apis mellifera) are the single most important crop pollinator in commercial agriculture. In recent years, beekeepers have reported alarmingly high colony mortality rates, particularly in “breadbasket” regions of the world.

In the United States, annual surveys show extremely high losses of managed honeybee colonies. Through the 2010s, U.S. beekeepers experienced around 30–40% average yearly losses, but this has recently spiked – an estimated 55.1% of U.S. bee colonies were lost over the 2023–24 season, the highest loss rate since surveys began in 2010. This is nearly 15 percentage points higher than the 13-year average loss rate of ~40%.

Commercial beekeeping operations have been hit especially hard: large-scale U.S. beekeepers lost 55.7% of their colonies in 2023–24, a huge jump above their historical average losses (~39%). Such losses are far above what is considered sustainable. (By comparison, prior to the mid-2000s, annual winter losses in the U.S. were traditionally only ~10–15%.)

European honeybee colonies have also suffered significant (if somewhat lower) losses. Surveys across 37 countries found average winter loss rates around 16–20% in Europe in recent years. Some countries have faced worse outbreaks of colony collapse in certain years, though EU-wide initiatives (such as restrictions on certain pesticides) aim to keep losses under control.

In Asia and Africa, data have been spottier, but emerging studies show that colony losses are rising there as well. For example, beekeepers in Kenya lost on average 36.6% of their colonies in 2021–2022. In parts of Ethiopia, annual losses have been reported as high as 45–68% in recent seasons.

Historically, Africa and South America were thought to have more resilient bee populations, but increased stressors (climate extremes, new pesticides, etc.) are now causing higher losses in those regions too.

In North America and Europe, many bumblebee species have sharply contracted in range since the late 20th century. For instance, the rusty-patched bumblebee (once common in the U.S. Midwest) has lost 87% of its historic range and is now listed as endangered.

Monarch butterflies – famous migratory pollinators – have seen their populations crash by an estimated 80–90% over the last two decades due to habitat loss and other factors (Western monarchs in California are down >95% since the 1980s). These long-term trajectories suggest the pollinator crisis is not a transient phenomenon: by most measures, it is getting worse.

It is worth noting one nuance: the total number of managed honeybee hives globally has actually increased in the past half-century (roughly doubling since the 1960s), mainly due to expansion of beekeeping in Asia. China, India, Turkey, and other countries have added millions of hives. However, this increase masks underlying problems – wild pollinators have continued to dwindle, and even managed bees are often kept on “life support” through intensive management. In some cases, bees have entirely disappeared: farmers in one county in Sichuan are now forced to pollinate fruit crops by hand because natural pollinators have been wiped out.

Declines in Other Pollinating Species

While insects account for the majority of pollination, other animal pollinators are also experiencing stresses. Bird pollinators such as hummingbirds, sunbirds, and certain parrots are threatened by habitat loss and climate change in many regions. For instance, some hummingbird species in the Americas are declining as the flowering habitats they rely on are altered by humans.

Bat pollinators (mostly fruit bats and nectar-feeding bats) are likewise under pressure – cave-roosting bat populations have been decimated in places by disease and by hunting and deforestation in the tropics. Many bat species that pollinate key plants (like the long-nosed bats that pollinate agave for tequila, or flying fox bats that pollinate tropical fruits) are in decline or locally extinct in parts of their range. Studies in Southeast Asia have documented 80% declines in visitation by certain nectar bat species to flowers over a decade, indicating steep drops in those bat populations.

Even flies and beetles, often overlooked, show signs of decline. Hoverflies (important pollinators) have reduced in diversity in Europe alongside bees. And nighttime pollinators like moths have been hard-hit – nocturnal moth populations in the UK, for example, dropped by one-third from the late 1960s to early 2000s, affecting nocturnal pollination of night-blooming plants. The drivers (many shared with insect declines generally) are discussed below. The key point is that the pollinator crisis is not just about honeybees: it spans many species.

What's Killing Pollinators?

This is death by a thousand human-induced cuts. There is no single cause, but rather a combination of pressures. The major drivers include habitat loss, pesticide use, diseases and invasive species, climate change, and intensive agriculture like monocropping. These factors often exacerbate each other (for example, poor nutrition from habitat loss makes bees more vulnerable to disease and chemicals).

Habitat Loss and Fragmentation: The expansion of agriculture and urban development has eliminated or fragmented many natural habitats that pollinators depend on. Wild bees and butterflies need flowering plants and nesting sites; when wildflower meadows, grasslands, forests, and hedgerows are cleared, pollinators lose food and shelter.

In many farming regions, the landscape has become inhospitable to pollinators except during crop bloom. For example, in China, rapid land-use changes (infrastructure projects, mining, deforestation) have drastically reduced the areas in which wild bee species can thrive. In the U.S. Midwest, the conversion of prairies and pastures to monoculture corn and soy fields leaves little forage for wild bees or butterflies (contributing to the monarch butterfly’s decline as milkweed plants are eradicated from fields).

Habitat loss also means loss of floral diversity – even if some flowers remain, a lack of diverse pollen and nectar sources can lead to nutritional stress in pollinators. Large distances between habitat patches make it hard for pollinators to recolonize areas. Overall, the simplification of landscapes and reduction of flowering plant abundance is a fundamental long-term driver of pollinator declines.

Pesticides and Agrochemicals: The heavy use of pesticides – insecticides, in particular – is widely implicated in pollinator losses. Neonicotinoids, a class of systemic insecticides, have been singled out for their high toxicity to bees and long persistence. These chemicals are used as seed coatings or sprays on millions of acres of crops; they can make a plant’s entire tissues (including pollen and nectar) poisonous to insects. Studies link neonicotinoid exposure to impaired navigation, reduced reproduction, and increased mortality in bees. In extreme cases, acute pesticide poisoning causes mass die-offs.

A stark example occurred in Brazil: between December 2018 and February 2019, over 500 million bees were found dead across several Brazilian states. Investigations traced it to pesticides containing neonicotinoids and fipronil (another bee-toxic insecticide) – chemicals that had recently been approved for expanded use in Brazil. (Both neonicotinoids and fipronil are banned in the EU due to the threat they pose to bees.) Brazilian beekeepers braced for more losses as hundreds of new pesticide products were authorized in 2019.

This illustrates how policy and pesticide regulation directly impact pollinator health. Even sublethal exposure to pesticides can weaken pollinators by damaging their immune systems or altering foraging behavior. Herbicides indirectly harm pollinators by killing wildflowers (removing food sources), and some fungicides have been shown to synergize with insecticides to increase bee toxicity. The consensus in scientific assessments is that pesticides are a key factor in global pollinator decline, and reducing harmful chemical use is critical to reversing the trend.

Diseases and Parasites: Pollinators are also under assault from various diseases, some exacerbated by human management. In honeybees, the parasitic Varroa destructor mite has been especially devastating. Varroa mites attach to bees and consume their fat bodies, while also transmitting deadly viruses like Deformed Wing Virus. Beekeepers worldwide cite Varroa as a ongoing threat to colonies. The mite, originally native to Asian honeybees, spread globally and reached almost every region by the 2000s (Australia being a recent holdout until incursions in 2022). Without diligent treatment, Varroa infestations can cause colony collapse within a couple of years. In late 2023, U.S. inspectors observed a significant uptick in varroa mites heading into winter, warning of high losses ahead.

In addition to Varroa, honeybees suffer from pathogens like Nosema and many viruses. The stresses of transport and intensive management can make these outbreaks worse.

Wild pollinators have their own diseases, and there is evidence that some diseases spill over from managed bees – for example, commercial bumblebee colonies (used in greenhouses) have transmitted pathogens to wild bumblebees. Invasive species also play a role here: the spread of Varroa is itself an invasive species story, and other invasive pollinator pests (like the small hive beetle in some regions, or predatory Asian hornets in Europe) add to the disease/predator burden.

Climate Change: Rapid climate change is another stress on pollinators. Many pollinating insects and animals are finely tuned to seasonal cycles; rising temperatures and altered weather patterns can disrupt these.

A key concern is phenological mismatch – when flowers bloom earlier or at different times due to warming, pollinators may emerge too late or too early to utilize them, leading to food shortages for pollinators and reduced pollination for plants.

Increased frequency of extreme weather is also harmful. Pollinators are vulnerable to events like heatwaves, droughts, cold snaps, and floods. Bumblebee queens, which must establish colonies in spring, can starve if early-season flowers dry up from drought.

Climate change is shifting the ranges of many species – some pollinators try to move to cooler areas (higher latitudes or altitudes), but not all can relocate or find suitable habitat, leading to local extinctions. Moreover, warming nights can harm nocturnal pollinators like moths and bats, and changes in precipitation can affect the continuity of floral resources. The increase in fires (linked to climate change in some regions) can also wipe out local pollinator communities by destroying vegetation. In arid regions, increased aridity implies a stress on the reproductive ability of bats that pollinate desert plants, for instance. Overall, climate change compounds other threats and is expected to become a more significant driver of pollinator decline as changes accelerate.

Monoculture Farming and Nutrition Stress: The way we practice agriculture – especially large-scale monocultures – often unintentionally harms pollinators. Monoculture farms (growing a single crop over vast areas) create feast-or-famine cycles for pollinating insects. During the brief window when the crop is in bloom, there may be an overabundance of one type of nectar/pollen; but once the bloom is over, there is little else to forage on for the rest of the season.

This is common in areas like the U.S. Midwest (corn/soy belt, which offers almost no floral resources for bees for most of the year) and California’s Central Valley with its vast almond orchards. In California, the almond industry provides a vivid example: each February, over 2 million bee hives (about 70% of all commercial honeybee colonies in the U.S.) are transported to almond orchards to pollinate the crop. After the almond bloom, those bees must be trucked elsewhere to find food. The concentration of hives for almonds also facilitates disease spread among colonies and exposes them to any pesticides used in the orchards. Many beekeepers liken it to sending bees to war – indeed, commercial beekeepers who send their hives to the almond farms are seeing their bees die in record numbers.

Beyond almonds, a general issue is that lack of dietary diversity (bees feeding on only one or a few crop types) can leave pollinators malnourished or deficient in certain nutrients, weakening their immune systems. Traditional farming landscapes that had mixed crops, fallow fields, and wildflower margins provided more continuous food supply; modern monocultures often do not. This agricultural intensification is closely tied to habitat loss and often accompanied by high chemical use (pesticides), making it part of a syndrome of industrial farming practices that harm pollinators.

Environmental Pollution: Various forms of pollution beyond pesticides also affect pollinators. Air pollution, for instance, has been shown to interfere with pollinators’ ability to locate flowers. Pollinating insects often home in on flowers by their scent, but common air pollutants can degrade floral scent molecules or create a smog that confuses insects.

Light pollution is another emerging threat: the spread of artificial lighting at night has negative impacts on nocturnal pollinators like moths and certain bats. Moths are drawn to artificial lights and may fail to pollinate the flowers they normally would, or become easy prey. Field research indicates that increased night lighting is a major driver for the worldwide decline of nocturnal pollinators such as moths. Even outside the immediate glow of lamps, ambient light can alter moth behavior and reduce pollination rates.

Water pollution (e.g. pesticide runoff or heavy metals in water) can indirectly affect pollinators if it degrades the aquatic larval habitats of some insects or contaminates the plants they feed on. While these forms of pollution are not usually the primary drivers, they add additional stress, especially in industrial and urban areas. The fact that pollinators are sensitive to such a range of pollutants underscores how pervasive human impacts are – even low-level pollution can disrupt the delicate plant-pollinator communication.

Invasive species and competition: The introduction of non-native pollinators or predators can unbalance ecosystems. For example, the spread of the Asian hornet (Vespa velutina) in Europe is a new threat – these hornets voraciously prey on honeybees, increasing losses in affected areas.

Competition from managed honeybees themselves can threaten wild pollinators: in intensive pollination events (like almond bloom), millions of honeybees may out-compete native bees for the same floral resources, potentially weakening native bee populations.

Pollinator Loss and Food Security

Many of the foods we eat (especially fruits, nuts, and vegetables) depend on pollination by animals to produce a good yield. Our ability to grow fruits and vegetables is threatened by pollinator collapse, in yet another blow to our food supply.

Not all crops need animal pollinators. Wind-pollinated or self-pollinated crops (like the major cereal grains) can set seed without insects. On the other hand, many high-value crops require or significantly benefit from insect or animal pollination.

Researchers have categorized major crops by their pollination dependence. Globally, it’s estimated that while ~75% of crop species benefit from animal pollination, those pollinator-dependent crops account for roughly 35% of total crop production volume. In other words, about one-third of our agricultural output (by weight) comes from crops that at least in part rely on pollinators. The remaining two-thirds (mostly staples like grains and tubers) do not depend on pollinators.

Crucially, the crops that need pollinators tend to be the ones rich in vitamins and minerals, whereas the staples that don’t need pollinators provide a large share of calories but fewer micronutrients.

Several studies have tried to quantify how pollinator declines might translate into changes in food supply. Since pollinator-dependent crops constitute about one-third of crop production by volume, one might think losing pollinators would cut food output by a third. In reality, the drop in total yield would be less, because many pollinator-dependent crops can still produce some yield without pollinators (just much reduced yields), and farmers could in theory shift cultivation towards non-dependent crops.

A comprehensive modeling study estimated that if all insect pollinators vanished, global crop production would decrease by around 5–8% in terms of total quantity. High-income countries would see ~5% decline, and low-to-middle-income countries around ~8% decline, because the latter have relatively more of their agriculture in fruits/vegetables. This range (5–8%) reflects the net calorie/protein loss. On its own it is significant but not catastrophic for basic calories. However, the impact on nutrition is severe and the second and third order effects risk global famine.

Pollinator-dependent crops are disproportionately responsible for vitamins and minerals in the human diet. For example, one analysis found that globally, pollinator-dependent crops account for about 40% of the nutrient supply for humans, including the majority of certain vitamins. Specifically, a large share of our Vitamin A, Vitamin C, and folate comes from pollinated crops.

A study in Nepal (with implications globally) found that 40% of plant-derived Vitamin A and 14% of Vitamin C in the diet are directly attributable to insect pollination. This is because so many Vitamin A-rich foods (like pumpkins, mangoes, papaya, carrots – many of which need pollinators) and Vitamin C-rich foods (citrus, berries, melons, etc.) depend on pollinators. Another global analysis similarly found as much as 50% of production of Vitamin A-rich foods in parts of Southeast Asia relies on pollinators, and substantial portions of other nutrients like calcium and iron intake are tied to pollinator-dependent crops in various regions.

As you can see, the first order effect is a human health issue. A 2023 modeling study connected insufficient pollination to global health outcomes and found that current pollinator declines (already happening) are resulting in an estimated 3–5% loss in fruit, vegetable, and nut production, which in turn increases prices and leads to an estimated ~500,000 excess premature human deaths per year due to reduced intake of healthy foods. These deaths are primarily from increased cardiovascular disease, stroke, and some cancers, as people eat fewer fruits and veggies and more staples. Middle-income countries (like India, China, Russia) were found to be hardest hit because their populations are especially reliant on affordable fruits and vegetables for nutrition.

Could Pollinator Decline Lead to Agricultural Collapse?

A complete collapse of pollination services would devastate crops that need pollinators. This wouldn’t necessarily cause immediate famine because humanity’s calorie staples (grains) could be grown without pollinators, but it would cause economic collapse in those agricultural sectors, major shifts in diet, and nutritional crises.

We would lose a food group – imagine if all fruits and many vegetables essentially vanished from markets or became prohibitively expensive or inaccessible. Dietary diversity would plummet, and health problems from vitamin deficiencies would surge in the general population.

There could also be cascading effects on livestock – for example, alfalfa and clover (forage crops for dairy cattle) benefit from bee pollination, so milk and meat production might drop in a pollinator-depleted world.

Ecologically, many wild plants would also fail to reproduce without pollinators, leading to less plant regeneration, which could degrade ecosystems that support agriculture (through services like erosion control, water supply, etc.). Thus, pollinator decline could indirectly weaken agriculture beyond just pollinated crops.

A decline in yields from pollinator-dependent crops comes at a time when climate change risks periodic breadbasket (or multi-breadbasket) collapse. The combined erosion of these two major food pillars, plus the second and third order effects on the ecosystem, leaves little to fall back on. This increases the likelihood of mass famine, and civilizational collapse.

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Some of my writing is a loose, passionate monologue. Some is deeply researched and analytical. All of it connects to the worsening poly-crisis. If you'd like to support my efforts, please consider a one-time contribution, subscribing or sharing.