#PollinatorWeek has US Buzzing

NSF_BIO

June 22, 2016

This afternoon the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) released the Pollinator Partnership Action Plan (PPAP). The PPAP accompanies the National Strategy to Promote Pollinator Health, released by OSTP in 2015 along with the science-based Pollinator Research Action Plan.

The National Strategy to Promote Pollinator Health has three goals:

  1. Reduce honey bee colony losses to economically sustainable levels;
  2. Increase monarch butterfly numbers to protect the annual migration; and
  3. Restore or enhance millions of acres of land for pollinators through combined public and private action.

To compliment today’s PPAP release, the National Science Foundation (NSF) summarized the agency’s pollinator portfolio (i.e., what the NSF funds in this area). The NSF supports many basic research and education programs and projects relevant to the National Strategy to Promote Pollinator Health. The majority of awards related to pollinators are made through the Directorate for Biological Sciences, but pollinator research is supported throughout the NSF. The NSF Pollinator Portfolio summary can be found here: http://go.usa.gov/xq5QB.

A bumblebee foraging on the petals of a larkspur flower.
A larkspur flower with a guest—a bumblebee foraging on its petals. (Credit: Karen Levy, Emory University)

To celebrate #PollinatorWeek, the NSF has also published an article on Medium highlighting NSF-funded research news and discoveries related to pollinator health.

Learn more about the National Strategy to Promote Pollinator Health, the PPAP, and how you can nurture and celebrate pollinators on the OSTP blog.