The declining number of bee and wasp species in England is linked to historic changes in land use, according to research published in Proceedings of the Royal Society.
Researchers at the University of Reading used digitised land-cover maps of 14 sites from the 1930s and historical data on pollinating insects to identify shifts in land use with the impact of these changes on the species’ richness and diversity.
The researchers compared land-cover changes at each site, and the surrounding landscape, and changes in the composition of bee and wasp communities.
They found a decline in the number of bee and wasp species over the past 80 years at 11 of the sites and concluded that changes in land use were driving the losses.