Ecological Justice and Pollinators
Measuring Pollinator Inequity
Ecological justice and equity means providing fair and meaningful access to environmental resources. This equity applies to not only humans, but our more-than-human friends. In this section, we focus on pollinators - so critical to humans as well as the plant kingdom - as one lens into issues of ecological justice in the Fruitvale.
Birds, bees, butterflies, flies, wasps, bats and many more - all are pollinators that play a role in cross-pollinating over 85% of flowering plants intertwined with our well being. Yet today, many of these pollinators face profound threats and stressors including climate change, pesticides, and habitat fragmentation to name a few. The disappearance of these keystone species has raised growing alarm for all of humankind: we all depend on them. What actions have been taken to protect these pollinators? What groups of pollinators and their habitats are receiving less priority for conservation?
Imidacloprid (a neonicotinoid insecticide) distribution 2014-2019 (Source: USGS Pesticide National Synthesis Project)
Bees as Our Focal Pollinator
The focus of this section will be on bees--the only pollinators that deliberately collect pollen.
Perhaps the most beloved of them all is the Wester Honey Bee (Apis mellifera). They are important agricultural workers facing several concerns such as neonicitinoid pesticides, colony collapse disorder, and varroa mites.
The majority of policies, funding, and public advocacy promote the conservation of these charismatic pollinators, but many others, especially California native pollinators, need just as much support and research (Hall 2019).
In exploring (in)equities, this section will highlight the less understood, but equally as important, native bees of California.
Image credit: BrightGift
Resiliency in Urban Spaces
Urban areas in the lense of ecology are often lumped as "developed" with little nuance. Similarly, there is little understanding of pollinator habitats in urban spaces compared to "wild" areas. From some literature it appears that the impact of the urban environment on bee behavior is minimal, and overall still hold value as pollinator habitats (Wojcik 2011).
Cities have the potential to be both pollinator hot spots and provide places of urban-wildland connectivity.
Map data source: The Nature Conservancy
Habitat Connectivity and Diversity
Habitat fragmentation has a different meaning for mobile pollinators, who feed on patches of scattered resources. Bees for example prefer dense and abundant patches of flowers that are located 100m or more radius from their homes (Wojcik 2012).
Maintaining species richness and abundance is important in urban spaces (Ayers 2021).
Image credit: Joyce Q
Zooming into Oakland, CA
In the following section, we follow one focal pollinator and imagine how they navigate through Oakland, California to find food and shelter. Click on the "View Storymaps" button the left to get a better view, or scroll through the embedded content below.