Tiny But Mighty: The Critical Role of Pollinators

Happy New Year! In this first episode of 2026, we spoke with Dr. Sarah Whipple, a Climate Adaptation Service Scientist and biologist with the Climate Adaptation Technical Services (CATS) initiative of the USGS National Climate Adaptation Science Center. Dr. Whipple, who has expertise in pollinator biology, inventory and monitoring, discussed the importance of pollinators and explained the impact of a shifting landscape and climate on species that are important for agriculture, food security and resilience. Listen to learn more about Sarah and her research!

Relevant links: CASC Climate Adaptation Technical Services 

The buzz around biodiversity decline: Detecting pollinator shifts using a systematic review

Leveraging virtual datasets to investigate the interplay of pollinators, protected areas, and SDG 15

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Transcript

Tiny But Mighty: The Critical Role of Pollinators

Emile: Welcome to Come Rain or Shine, podcast of the US Geological Survey, Southwest Climate Adaptation Science Center, or Southwest CASC and supported by New Mexico State University and the University of Arizona. We are your co-hosts, Emile Elias

Sarah: And Sarah LeRoy Here we highlight stories to share the most recent advances in science, weather, and climate adaptation and innovative practices to support resilient landscapes and communities.

Emile: We believe that sharing some of the most innovative forward-thinking and creative scientific research and adaptation solutions will strengthen our collective ability. To respond to even the most challenging impacts of climate change in one of the hottest and driest regions of the world.

Sarah: Happy New Year. Today we are talking about pollinators. Last year we spoke with Melanie Kirby and Davon Collins from the Institute of American Indian Arts about their educational program and beekeeping in the southwest. For this episode, we will be focusing on the most recent science related to pollinators, and we'll be discussing their importance and what changes researchers are seeing to talk about these important topics.

We're speaking with Dr. Sarah Whipple, a biologist with the USGS National Climate Adaptation Science Center, and whose research has focused on assessing how changes in climate are impacting pollinators. Welcome, Sarah. Thank you so much for joining us today. So, let's just start with a little bit of background.

Could you describe the different types of pollinators that you have studied? 

Sarah W.: Yeah, and thanks so much for having me today. I describe myself as a bit of a pollinator generalist. Most of my work has focused on bumble bees and butterflies since they're such key players in many ecosystems. But I've also dabbled in studying other native bee genera along with moths and beetles that play important but often overlooked roles in pollination. 

Beyond pollinators I've supported research on a variety of other invertebrates, things like dragonflies, stone flies, mayflies and caddis flies, which gives me a pretty broad view of how these different species fit into their environments. 

Sarah: Excellent, thank you. You know, I hadn't thought of beetles as a pollinator, so I'm glad that we asked that question so we can give our listeners a, you know, a broad idea of what we're talking about today.

And so from a broad level, can you describe why pollinators are so important? 

Sarah W.: Sure. So, without pollinators our ecosystems and agricultural systems would look very different and I’ll bin their importance into three main categories. 

The first category is food and agriculture. So many of the crops that people rely on for fruits, vegetables, nuts, and seeds depend on animals like bees, butterflies, moths, flies, beetles, bats and birds to move pollen between flowers, so those plants can set fruit and seed, and at least 75% of all flowering plants on earth are pollinated by insects and animals, which amounts to more than 1200 food crops and 180,000 different types of plants. Roughly one out of every three bites of food we eat is linked to animal pollination, and the service is worth hundreds of billions of dollars to the global economy each year.

The next category I'll speak to is ecosystems and biodiversity. In natural systems, pollinators are critical for the reproduction of most flowering plants, which in turn form the base of terrestrial food webs and provide habitat and food for countless other species. By enabling a wide variety of plants to reproduce, pollinators help maintain biodiversity, stabilize soils, clean the air and water, and support wildlife ranging from insects and birds to mammals.

And our final category is human wellbeing and resilience. The plants that rely on pollinators contribute to climate regulation and carbon storage, which helps buffer communities against climate change and extreme weather. When pollinator populations decline, it can ripple out through implications such as reduced crop yields, less diverse diets, and more fragile ecosystems.

So, protecting pollinators is directly tied to long-term food security and environmental resilience. 

Emile: Ah. Thanks Sarah. Thanks for giving us that background. And I want to talk a little bit about your research. So your research and also that of others has shown some pretty large changes to pollinators, including changes to populations and migration patterns.

Can you describe some of those changes? 

Sarah W.: So pollinators are changing in when and where they occur, which species are most common, and how reliably they track the plants they depend on. With many specialist species or species that require specific habitat, food, or environmental conditions losing ground, while a smaller set of generalists or species that can survive in a variety of environmental conditions are becoming more dominant. These shifts are driven mainly by climate change and land use change, and have real consequences for ecosystems, crops, and human communities that rely on stable pollination services.

So there's kind of three big consistent signals of change occurring for both bumblebees and butterflies. The first is earlier emergence in spring, contractions in species’ geographic ranges, as well as growing mismatches between pollinators and the flowering times of their host plants or the plants that rely on flowers for food, habitat, or reproduction. Bumblebees are generally emerging weeks earlier than historically recorded, showing strong evidence of range contractions and experiencing changes in richness and abundance.

While butterflies show earlier emergence and declines in many specialists and single generation species, even as some generalist species increase. And a key pattern is a shift in community composition. So generalist pollinators, which can use many different plants and habitats tend to increase or remain stable in their populations, while specialist pollinators tied to particular plants or narrow climate windows tend to decline. And that means that pollinator worlds are becoming less diverse and more dominated by a smaller set of flexible, adaptable species, even in places where total pollinator numbers may look relatively stable right now.

Emile: Thank you. So you mentioned that climate change and land use change are the main drivers causing some of these impacts to pollinators. I wondered if you might want to talk about that a little bit more or share some specific examples. 

Sarah W.: Yeah, so this was all tied to work that I did as part of a broad systematic review and across the studies that we synthesized, climate and land use change consistently occurred as those main drivers. So warming temperatures, altered precipitation and declining snowpack are changing the timing of seasons and the conditions that pollinators experience. While habitat loss, fragmentation, agricultural intensification, and urbanization reshape where floral resources and nesting sites are available on the landscape. And climate change can affect pollinators directly, for example, by pushing them beyond their thermal tolerances or exposing them to more frequent climate extremes and indirectly by altering the timing, abundance, and distribution of the plants they depend on.

Land use change amplifies these pressures by reducing habitat quality and connectivity. So even species that might otherwise adapt to changing climates cannot easily shift their ranges or find alternative resources. 

Emile: Okay. Thank you. And why are these changes in pollinators important? So in other words, what are some of the impacts that we might see - we as humans - might see from these changes in pollinator populations?

Sarah W.: Yeah, and it totally comes back to my kind of importance earlier, the broader why we're thinking about pollinators and this idea of human resilience. And so changes in pollinator communities, especially the loss of specialist species and range contractions and sensitive to taxa, can undermine the stability and redundancy of pollination networks that can support wild plant diversity, which has implications towards broader human diversity and the needs that we have as species. And so when fewer pollinator species interact with fewer plant species, ecosystems become more vulnerable to additional stresses, which can lead to cascading losses of plants and the animals that rely on them for food and habitat. Now for people, these shifts can translate into less reliable pollination for crops and wild plants, potentially affecting yields, nutritional diversity and the resilience of food systems under climate change.

Even in places where some generalist pollinators remain abundant, the erosion of overall pollinator diversity reduces the insurance policy that different species provide against extreme years, diseases, or further environmental change or other conditions that are unpredictable at this time. 

Sarah: Thanks Sarah, and I appreciate thinking about pollinators in terms of diversity as well as population.

I think a lot of times when we hear about pollinator decline, we're hearing about the populations decreasing, and we don't think so much about the diverse set of pollinators, that it's also important for what we're talking about today. So, switching gears just a little bit, you've conducted some research also specifically focusing on pollinators and virtual data sets at National Parks, and so I'm wondering if you can describe that research a little bit and what you've discovered.

Sarah W.: Sure, this research used existing virtual data sets to understand where pollinators and protected areas are aligned or out of sync, and how that affects progress towards broader global biodiversity goals, such as sustainable development goal 15 life on land. By focusing on a national park context and its surrounding landscape, this research tested whether existing online data sets are rich and accurate enough to inform conservation decisions for pollinators without new intensive field campaigns. And with full transparency, I did my PhD research during COVID times, and this was honestly a little bit of a byproduct of having to adapt and be flexible myself in the types of data that I could collect based on the conditions of conducting field research in high risk locations such as Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Park amongst a global pandemic as well, and trying to be safe amongst all those changes that we were navigating. On top of that my PhD advisor was a biologist in Yellowstone and Grand Teton in the eighties and did a lot of work on butterflies, and so we had some preexisting knowledge of the data that was available from a historic perspective that could set us up in a good spot to kind of answer some of these questions.

And so going back into this research a little bit more specifically, our definition of virtual data sets included museum repositories, citizen science databases, or community science databases. But we also compiled local collections and repositories that have yet to be digitized based on some of that preexisting knowledge of historic work. And so using these virtual data sets, we evaluated patterns such as how many pollinator records and species fall inside versus outside of protected area boundaries, namely Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Park, and how connected those habitats appeared on the map based on these records.

We also assess data gaps where the data suggests there are important habitat to preserve or pressures to be aware of, but pollinator records are sparse or absent, indicating a need for future targeted inventory and monitoring efforts. And our analysis found that protected areas like national parks can contain important pollinator records and potential habitat, but significant pollinator activity and habitat also occur in the surrounding unprotected matrix that may not receive as much attention or research themselves. So that means that achieving biodiversity targets for pollinators requires thinking beyond park borders and integrating management on adjacent lands.

The second major takeaway was that virtual data sets are powerful, but perhaps incomplete tools. They can highlight broad patterns, priorities, and mismatches between pollinator distributions and protection. Yet they also reveal strong spatial and taxonomic biases in where and, and what has been sampled.

And so in practice, the work argues for using these digital resources as a starting point to guide on-the-ground surveys and conservation actions rather than as a total substitute for field research efforts. 

Sarah: Very interesting. Thank you for that. So your research is mostly at a national scale, and so I'm wondering if we can bring it down to the Southwest region a bit.

Do you know if there are specific changes occurring in the Southwest that are maybe different from what is seen at the national scale? 

Sarah W.: So the Southwest fits a lot of the broader national trends of pollinator declines that are happening, but it is a standout hotspot where climate driven drought and heat are hitting bee and butterfly diversity especially hard with steeper losses in species richness compared to more stable regions, such as what's observed along the East Coast. 

Large scale models tracking bees and butterflies over decades reveal that declining richness across the western US, particularly in the arid southwest, while some eastern areas are showing stable or even increasing numbers, depending on the species. And that perhaps could be tied to some of those range shifts that are occurring. It's a little bit unclear at this time what's causing some of those patterns.

Key research on the topic pinpoints the Southwest as a high risk zone, crammed with at-risk species, amplifying the stakes for unique pollinators like certain bumblebees and specialist butterflies already showing range contractions and earlier emergence. 

And while habitat loss, urbanization, agricultural intensification, pesticides, and disease pressure pollinators continent-wide, the Southwest’s top threat really is intensified climate change. Prolonged droughts, extreme heat, shifting fire patterns and disrupted water flow that starve both insects and their host plants in water scarce deserts and shrublands. And these conditions create tighter thermal limits and floral mismatches, hitting ground-nesting bees and narrow range butterflies harder than in wetter climates.

And what this can lead to is more targeted restoration efforts of some of the more resilient habitats in the region, such as riparian zones, desert grasslands, and Sky Island refugia plus monitoring to catch early warning signs that national data might miss. 

Emile: Well, thanks Sarah. That makes it, management, even more important. Those findings related to impacts to pollinators in the Southwest as compared to the rest of the United States. And so I'm wondering, how does your research within National Parks impact management? So in other words, do you have recommendations for managers based on your findings? 

Sarah W.: Yeah, so pollinator research in national parks directly shapes how and where managers take action.

Species inventories identify which bee and butterfly species are present, including threatened and endangered species, and how their abundance relates to management practices such as invasive plant removal, grazing, prescribed fire and mowing efforts. 

And by linking species data with habitat and land use information, we can recommend where to focus restoration, when to adjust the timing or intensity of disturbance, and which areas may serve as refugia or connectivity hubs for pollinators across the broader landscape. So some examples of recommendations include use inventory results to prioritize invasive plant removal and habitat restoration in areas supporting high pollinator richness. Species or key migratory resources, for example, monarch and milkweed sites or bumblebee hotspots.

Managers could consider adjusting the timing and spatial extent of grazing, mowing and prescribed fire to avoid peak flowering or peak activity periods of focal pollinator groups using park specific inventory and phenology data when it's available. They could consider incorporating virtual data sets such as those museum records, monitoring databases, or digital observation platforms like iNaturalist or other citizen science platforms alongside new park surveys to detect longer term shifts in pollinator distributions and to benchmark park species’ status relative to area outside of the parks.

And finally, managers could consider maintaining or enhancing habitat connectivity within and amongst parks to support pollinator movement, especially for species identified as declining or range shifting themselves. 

Emile: Great. A lot of options. Thanks Sarah. And so you recently moved positions in the federal government and you're now working with the CASCs and the Climate Adaptation Technical Services program. So can you tell us a little bit about that program and what you do in your new position? 

Sarah W.: Sure. Yeah. I went from bugs to cats which is, you know, keeping in the animal themes. And so the CASC Climate Adaptation Technical Services or CATS team is a new multi-year pilot effort to respond to management needs on climate adaptation.

These technical climate services hope to enable Department of the Interior bureaus and partners to more rapidly incorporate climate adaptation science into their plans, practices and decisions; increase staff understanding of climate adaptation science; increase staff skills in using climate adaptation science themselves, and grow trusted relationships within the CASC program.

We envision this pilot as a natural component or complement to the regional and national CASC research programs such as the Southwest CASC that focus on developing and delivering new climate adaptation science. And our team provides technical assistance in three main categories. The first is scientific advice to connect expert partners to existing data tools and science resources.

This advice includes iterative engagement with partners to understand management challenges, assess data tools and needs, provide informal training to help partners use and interpret existing tools and potentially data resources. Next we provide timely scientific analysis and synthesis of available data and literature on relevant climate sensitivities, exposures and risks.

And finally, we help to develop data sets and tools to broadly support climate adaptation for natural and cultural resource managers. And over the past year, our team has worked on topics ranging from the potential effects of stream flow projections on aquatic species to wildfire risk planning, to AI data centers, and water availability. So really exploring lots of different avenues when it comes to climate adaptation. And we are just wrapping up our first year of providing technical assistance to bureau partners in CASC regions and look forward to what next year brings to us of future services we can provide, perhaps even to a listener or selfishly, perhaps a pollinator request as well.

Sarah: Thanks, Sarah. We are super excited to have you as a part of the CASC team, as well as the other CATS folks that have joined us as well. And so now I want to talk about hope. We like to ask all of our participants about where they find hope for the future, since we like to end each episode on a hopeful note.

So I'm curious what gives you hope? 

Sarah W.: Yeah, and I thought a lot about this question because, you know, I think we all could use a lot more hope these days, whether it's small or large. You know, there's just so much going on and it's, it's a good reminder that there is so much good work going on right now. 

And so what gives me hope is really the next generation. Our youth are more outspoken and supporting resources for topics such as this one - pollinator conservation - than ever before. And this trend correlates to small actions such as individual decisions and community initiatives to support ideas and opportunities like native plant restoration and pollinator habitats.

And so, youth involvement through activities like education campaigns and local actions contributes to discussions on biodiversity safeguards that can aid pollinators, as well as many other wildlife species and in connection with scientists, managers, and the broader community. 

So, such widespread participation suggests potential for addressing pollinator declines through collective environmental strategies. And I do think that as cheesy as it sounds, the youth is really our future. And so we have to build that hope and give us all something that we feel motivated to keep protecting and keep conserving together as a collective. 

Sarah: Great answer. Last question, what is one thing you would like listeners to remember from our conversation today? 

Sarah W.: One key thing for listeners to remember is that even the smallest species like bees or butterflies and beetles play huge irreplaceable roles in keeping our ecosystem and food systems healthy.

Protecting pollinators isn't just about saving the bees or something that's big or the flashy. It's about valuing every one of nature's tiny workers who make life possible and make this planet as special as it is. 

Sarah: Okay. Excellent. Well, thank you very much, Sarah for joining us, and we appreciate you taking the time. Thank you.

Sarah W.: Thanks so much for having me.

Emile: Thanks for listening to Come Rain or Shine podcast of the USGS Southwest CASC New Mexico State University and the University of Arizona. If you liked this podcast, don't forget to rate or review it and subscribe for more great episodes. 

Sarah: A special thanks to our production crew, Reanna Burnett, Lauren White and Fausto Durazo.

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