With new tool, birds can help track – and save – wild bees

Credit: Bryan Danforth/Provided

An estimated 3,600 species of wild bees serve as pollinators in the U.S., but the populations are in decline - a new tool can track and estimate the diversity of wild bees using data about birds from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology.

An estimated 3,600 species of wild bees serve as pollinators in the U.S., playing a crucial role for the nation’s agriculture. But those bee populations appear to be in decline, and with scant data on wild bees, conservation efforts have proven difficult.