A recent study has found that air pollution in urban and rural environments is affecting the pollination abilities of important insects. Butterflies and bees are finding it difficult to sniff out wildflowers and crops that depend on them. The U.K. study was published in the journal Environmental Pollution on Wednesday.
The study found common air pollutants like nitrogen oxides released from diesel exhausts can chemically alter floral odours. This disrupts the cues that certain insects need to find and pollinate flowers. The researchers of the study were from the University of Reading, the U.K. Centre for Ecology & Hydrology, and the University of Birmingham.
Specifically, the group found that there were up to 70 per cent fewer pollinators and up to 90 per cent fewer flower visits when common air pollutants were present on ground level. Project lead Robbie Girling said in a news release that “we knew from our previous lab studies that diesel exhaust can have negative effects on insect pollinators, but the impacts we found in the field were much more dramatic than we had expected,”
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