Announcing a New Subject Section in Environmental Entomology: Pollinator Ecology and Management

Extract

For over a decade, pollinator health has been of major concern to the agricultural sector, entomologists, and the public. Beekeepers have suffered sometimes devastating losses of colonies, the apicultural industry has been severely disrupted, and there is growing concern about our ability to maintain and increase production of many crops efficiently and economically. In the last couple of years, significant amounts of federal funding have been released to address the complex challenges facing pollinators, and a number of tenure-track positions have been established in academic departments across the nation. The Entomological Society of America’s Plant-Insect Ecosystems Section (PI-E) recently announced a new initiative on pollinators. Clearly, there is a long-term commitment to research into this complex of issues, pushed in part by public awareness of potential adverse consequences absent such initiatives.

Colleagues actively engaged in relevant research in this area have told me that they have no single “go to” place to publish their work. Within the ESA journal portfolio, Environmental Entomology has published a number of manuscripts, but they have been scattered among various subject sections within the journal. The Journal of Economic Entomology also publishes papers on apiculture, but its focus is on research related to the economic significance of the problem. Papers are also scattered among a number of ecology journals, and regional and lesser-known entomological journals. For such an important problem, we believe that a platform should be available where papers addressing the broader phenomenon of pollinator ecology and management can be concentrated and made easily accessible in a major international entomological journal.