Polinizadores México

It took four billion years for the

planet to create the conditions for

life to be possible.

Life on the planet evolved

from molecules such as lipids,

carbohydrates,

and nucleic acids (DNA).

The combination of these

organic elements in a primordial soup allowed for

the origin of life and the evolution of

all living forms on the planet.

[Music]

Our ecosystems

are the combination of millions of

interactions between living beings and the

environment that have evolved over billions

of years.

One of the most important interactions

that determines the maintenance of

ecosystems

[Music] is

animal pollination.

Day and night in terrestrial ecosystems,

millions of winged creatures go out in

search of flowers. These creatures favor

the sexual reproduction of plants by

transporting pollen between flowers of

the same species while also

obtaining food.

Flowers exist in infinite varieties

of size, color, and shape. We

have given them magical properties and

meaning or symbolism.

Although they are present in our lives

in the happiest and saddest moments, they were

not made for us.

Flowers evolved

strategically to attract the attention

of pollinators.

Every day,

insects, bats, and birds are attracted

to flowers that offer them their

most precious resource: nectar, an

energy drink composed of sugars,

water, and minerals.

Each plant species produces a

special nectar to attract the

pollinators that will ensure

successful reproduction.

135 million years ago,

plants developed

particular floral shapes to attract

pollinators and ensure the efficient

transformation of pollen into tiny

particles containing the

plant's male cells.

[Music]

Pollinators carry the pollen as far as

possible to meet the

female part of the flower and fertilize the

ovules. This process is called

pollination, and the result is the

formation of fruits and seeds.

Bees are one of the

most

ecologically and economically important groups of pollinators.

They exhibit a great diversity of

species—

more than 20,000 on the planet—and are very

abundant in the

world's natural and agricultural ecosystems. Therefore, the

presence of bees is

fundamental, and the

diversity of bees is very important; it is

important that there is not just one species, but a variety.

That there are many species

available so that each of

them can perform

more varied pollination functions, thus ensuring

the reproduction of a greater number of

crops and also the maintenance of

the flora. This is something

that also interests us because

wild flora even feeds bees. And

then, when visiting crops, what is the

pollination service that

both these Africanized and

European bees provide to crops, as well as

native bees? Because this

ecosystem service of pollination definitely

has a very important impact on

national agricultural production. That is

precisely the research project

that deals with food security,

that is, what is the impact of these

bees on the production efficiency

of crops that depend on

pollinators.

But also, this has a very

important impact on agricultural fields and the

country's food security because

these pollinators move

from those regions to agricultural regions,

to that natural agricultural interface. [

Music]

That thing they carry on their legs, which is the

pool,

the collection of the logic, the photograph, they

carry it

to pollinate, so that...

who has scored more goals here, the

more pool starts from the calls,

it sets in, bad talk in Mexico. There are

24,960 species of plants, of

which

95% are flowering plants that depend

on pollinators to reproduce.

[Music]

Mexicans cultivate more than 171

species of plants,

of which 85% depend directly on

pollinators to produce fruits and

seeds.

The contribution of pollinators to the

national economy is estimated at 43

billion pesos a year.

[Music]

And we are beginning to see

the benefits of pollination.

We take care of all aspects, but

we neglect pollination. The

temperature drops, there is no pollination due to

inadequate pollination, or we don't put bees in. 25

percent of our production is at

risk. If he has to consider

waiting for 18 tons, it turns out I only

have 2, the

striker's.

[Applause]

[Music] [Music] [

Music]

There are 2,000 species of native bees

that for thousands of years have carried out

the Pollination service in

ecosystems and crops.

Among these bees, the melipona are

native and social stingless bees

that produce honey of great

commercial value to which medicinal properties are attributed.

[Music]

In the forests of the Yucatan Peninsula,

the Maya worshipped a stingless bee,

the melipona.

In the temple of Sakhi, the god of music,

he gave corn and honey to

humans.

These were the basis of their economy.

They wrote manuals on their breeding and

for more than five centuries established

millionaires throughout the forest.

[Music]

The rise of henequen and livestock in

the 18th century wiped out large

areas of forest and the melipona honey.

In southern Yucatan, meliponiculture

reforested abandoned plots where there had been

intensive agriculture and livestock.

Sadam

Camp Nou

Beam a Yeste granadillo are trees, and

this is precisely what the

melipona seeks. They are trees more than

herbs. It is the famous Elche

that is found on the peninsula. It is a honey Of

very good quality,

resistant to droughts and blooming

every year, this is the chiche plant.

This brings a double benefit since

the habitat for melipona bees is recovered, and

meliponiculture benefits

economically by commercializing

high-value honey and propolis on the market.

Like gold, but certainly sweet, it

is a food, but because of its price, we do

n't use it so much as food but

for its medicinal properties.

So we can enhance the medicinal properties

with the native medicinal plants

that the Maya used, and neither they

nor that is honey from

poorly made wood, it's already

gone. So we can harvest

propolis, we can harvest pollen, we can

harvest honey, and we can harvest wax. While these are

things we can have, the

hives that were brought here are

weak hives, practically

discarded hives that I had. I brought them here, and they

recovered very quickly and are

now producing more than

those in the city where the

strong hives are. This will give us an

indication that the jungle is in its

optimal conditions for raising

melipona bees and honeybees. Melipona

bees, in turn, are contributing

to the pollination of these plants.

Another very important point is that these

protected areas and forests are

vital for the nesting sites of

all these bees. Native bees,

like Africanized bees, have the

ability to form nests under

natural conditions, and in fact, native bees

depend exclusively on these

natural conditions for their nests.

[Music]

The European honeybee,

Apis mellifera, was introduced to the

American continent by the Spanish

in the 16th century.

This bee is very docile; they do not usually

abandon their hives, and for more than 400

years

they supplied the colonies with pollen,

honey, and wax.

In the 1950s, a

Brazilian geneticist dreamed of making Brazil

the world's leading honey producer.

To achieve this, he had to improve the

European honeybee's adaptation to

Brazil's tropical climate. He imported honeybees

from southern Africa and crossed them with

European bees.

The result was a bee ten times

more aggressive and not necessarily more

productive.

[Music]

Some bees resulting from this

experiment escaped during The

project rapidly forms new

colonies in nature by

reproducing with European bees.

These hybrid bees have been called

Africanized

since the 1980s. Africanized bees have

integrated into our ecosystems,

becoming one of the

most important pollinators. They are

bees capable of migration, meaning they can

swarm in a specific place and time

when

unfavorable environmental conditions,

other biotic pressures, or even

demographic pressures

cause them to migrate. This is why

these bees have

traveled thousands of kilometers

from

Brazil to North America since the 1980s.

[Music]

Well, today the scenario is that

Africanized bees exist both in

natural and

managed conditions, and

European bees are also found within

the country. So, the entire

Mexican territory has Africanized bees

that are used in different regions

of Mexico. Today, they are also used for honey production. The bee

indicates with its movements where

the flowering is; it turns to the

right,

but the abundance of the scale indicates

by moving its abdomen. The greater the number of

movements, the greater the abundance. The

greater the food source,

the forager bees collect nectar

from flowers and store it in their

honey stomach where digestive enzymes

break down the sugars.

This mixture is regurgitated from the

forager bees to the nurse bees.

The nurse bees pass the mixture

among themselves up to 90 times before it is

finally deposited in the honeycomb cells.

At the same time, some bees beat their

wings to regulate the temperature of the

hive and promote the dehydration of

the mixture that will eventually become

honey.

[Music]

Beekeeping in Mexico is a

very important economic activity that generates

approximately

100,000 direct jobs. This activity

takes place in 5 agricultural regions

in which an average of

62,000 tons of honey are produced annually. It is

part of our culture, it is part of

our lives, working in beekeeping

is something very beautiful, and besides

the beauty, we know that

this product is shipped to Europe.

Most of this product

[Music] comes from

these places, from a

small jungle that we find in The

cacao community, which also has its

reserve because of the beautiful coastal areas bordering

Belize and Guatemala, made

me happy for our rainforest. It's a

shame the fires are still burning, and the

reforestation efforts have also destroyed it.

The main threats facing

pollinators are deforestation,

land-use change, and

climate change. We don't agree that

governments continue granting permits that allow

deforestation to continue. We

've seen that about 30

years ago, to get a

300-kilo drum of honey, we needed

12-13 hives.

Now, to

get a drum of honey, we need

25-30 hives.

[Music]

Look, the flora is

still there, the flowers are still there,

the shade trees of the coffee plantations are

in bloom, but there's no nectar

because it's being washed away by the rain.

We're not feeding them because the

rains are atypical; they arrived very

early. It's April, and

here, it usually doesn't arrive. The month of June,

but they arrived very early today

because of this climate change that was

affecting us so much. The increase in

cultivated area is not being accompanied

by an increase in

pollinating bee populations; that

's a fact that is being demonstrated.

We are planting much more than

the bees are capable of using.

So we need the bees, or

we also need to develop a

less intensive and more rational agriculture. And

the pattern was slow to bring the

bees, that's why we see that

the plant hasn't produced the same; it couldn't bear fruit well.

If we look for another watermelon, we don't

find one nearby.

We see the forest as something useless, that

has no utility, no

economic value, but that's really where

many of the species that

help humans live and from which we

benefit, like the bees. If there

are no forests, the bees have nowhere to

help or where to find

food.

So we must begin to

realize that forests are not

just useless spaces, but that they

have a benefit that they provide

for us. In the

cities, we do

n't have one of the areas where

good forests are preserved. The number of colonies of

various species, mainly of the mer

and pon la leche, is significant,

but something we have been

facing in recent years is the

serious deterioration of the forest surrounding the

faculty. This poses

a very great danger

because, despite our

best efforts to

conserve these bees, if we don't

have the resources, if we don't have

enough of the necessary resources for them to

obtain the medicare and

cullen they need to develop,

then the effort can be

jeopardized.

In Michoacán, more than

153,000 hectares of forest have been

converted into avocado monocultures.

This change in land use results in

the loss of habitat for

pollinators,

reducing the pollination service

to avocado orchards.

The decrease in pollinators

necessitates the transport of thousands of

Apis mellifera hives throughout the

country to provide pollination services.

However, this movement of bees

contributes to the spread of

diseases that affect the health of

the bees, whether or not they have

diseases or pathogens.

This is a very important point. which

could be causing part of this

decline in pollinators

and other diseases apparently

bred from lime production.

Fruit and vegetable production

demands large quantities of pesticides.

The molecules of these chemicals

mix with the nectar of plants and

are ingested by pollinators.

[Music]

The use of a series of insecticides that

are neonicotinoids, which were originally

presented as perhaps more

environmentally friendly insecticides, but today

we know that these do not

seriously affect the memory of

bees. Consequently,

they would have very serious problems, especially

social bees, because they get lost in

flight when going out in search of

resources.

Analysis of the possible decline of

pollinators and its relationship with

different factors that could be

causing this problem.

To analyze the causes of the decline of

pollinators, the National Laboratory of

Ecological Synthesis of the UNAM develops

research projects throughout

Mexico. One of these projects analyzes the

degree of Africanization, the

food preferences, and the threats

faced by bee colonies in

different beekeeping regions. From Mexico,

the information obtained will allow us to

identify the causes of bee

colony decline and generate

conservation and management strategies

appropriate for each beekeeping region.

Although this project focuses on

bees, the results will provide information

on the threats

faced by other pollinator species.

Pollinators are key to the

reproduction of all trees

found in their natural habitat in

Mexico. Sexual reproduction is

undoubtedly the most important means of

reproduction for all these trees that

form the base of our forests in

Mexico. These trees reproduce

sexually, producing seeds, and from

there, their regeneration begins.

Therefore, pollinators play

a fundamental role in this relationship,

and these same pollinators have a

significant impact on

forest restoration when forests are

lost. This is because

seed production occurs

sexually, and these seeds are dispersed to

disturbed areas, which then

regenerate these forests. From an

ecological preservation perspective, this is

vital for the maintenance of

our protected natural areas

in Mexico. 1900

species of bees,

44 of birds, 73 of hummingbirds,

6,125 of butterflies,

186 of flies, and 10 species of

bats. It is

still unknown how many species of

beetles,

ants, or other birds besides

hummingbirds perform pollination services.

All these pollinators are

at risk, and their loss will

seriously affect food security.

[Music]

[Music]