Yogyakarta, 22 July 2024 – The 7th International Summer Course in Sustainable Development: Sustainable Bioprospecting of Tropical Biodiversity lecture series in 2024 continues by presenting various experts from all over the world. In this series, we present a professor in the field of Pollination Biology from Yamagata University, Prof. Jun Yokoyama who brought up the topic of disruption in pollinator insect diversity and how it affects world climate change.
This session was moderated by Atikah Fitria Muharromah, S.Si., M.Eng. from the Entomology Laboratory, Faculty of Biology, Universitas Gadjah Mada. Atikah introduced Prof. Jun is an expert in the fields of evolutionary biology, ecology and conservation. His research examines many pollinator insects, ecosystems and their effects on the environment.
Prof. Jun started his presentation by explaining pollinating insects, especially Hymenoptera, and emphasized the mutualistic relationship between insects and plants through the exchange of pollen and nectar. He highlighted how insect groups have preferences for certain flowers. Certain insects, especially bees and wasps, play a large role in global food production, Prof. Jun added. These insects bridge the process of flower pollination and influence the amount of food production.
Prof. Jun highlighted the current climate change conditions, especially in tropical areas, heavy logging of forests, and food production which has increased significantly to meet the needs of the ever-increasing human population. He emphasized that there had been a reduction in the number of pollinators by up to 40%. The urgency of dealing with increasingly extreme climate change is important in efforts to conserve resources and mitigate other larger disasters.
The professor from Yamagata University then introduced the “Hamanaru Maruhana Project”, an effort to conserve and collect data on the distribution of bees in Japan. The project aims to estimate past, present and future distributions to be used as reference data for analysis of conservation efforts.
Closing the online lecture session, Prof. Jun again emphasized the importance of the role of pollinators and how climate and environmental change affects them. It is hoped that through this lecture, ISC participants can contribute to sustainable conservation efforts in the future.