Entomology

This is the best summary I could come up with:

Globally, between 3% and 5% of vegetable, fruit and nut production is being lost due to inadequate pollination, according to research led by Harvard University and published in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives.

However, the implications of this 3-5% loss were significant: it leads to about 420,0000 excess deaths annually from a reduction in healthy food consumption and diseases that stem from that, the researchers found.

Smith says: “To put this figure in perspective, this is equivalent to the number of people who die annually from substance-use disorders, interpersonal violence or prostate cancer.”

Prof Franciska de Vries, from Amsterdam University, who was lead researcher on the study, said the immediate impacts of extreme events such as droughts, heatwaves and storms are on plants.

Up to 40% of land is now classed as degraded, UN data shows, with half of the world’s population already suffering the impact of depleted soil fertility, water, biodiversity, trees or native vegetation.

Find more age of extinction coverage here, and follow biodiversity reporters Phoebe Weston and Patrick Greenfield on X, formerly known as Twitter, for all the latest news and features

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