Potts, Simon G.; Neumann, Peter; Vaissière, Bernard; Vereecken, Nicolas J. (2018). Robotic bees for crop pollination: Why drones cannot replace biodiversity. Science of the total environment, 642, pp. 665-667. Elsevier 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2018.06.114
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The notion that robotic crop pollination will solve the decline in pollinators has gained wide popularity recently (Fig. 1), and in March 2018 Walmart filed a patent for autonomous robot bees. However, w present six arguments showing that this is a technically and economically inviable 'solution' at present and poses substantial ecological and moral risks: (1) despite recent advances, robotic pollination is far from being able to replace bees to pollinate crops efficiently; (2) using robots is very unlikely to be economically viable; (3) there would be unacceptably high environmental costs; (4) wider ecosystems would be damaged; (5) it would erode the values of biodiversity; and, (6) relying on robotic pollination could actually lead to major food insecurity.
Item Type: |
Journal Article (Original Article) |
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Division/Institute: |
05 Veterinary Medicine > Department of Clinical Research and Veterinary Public Health (DCR-VPH) 05 Veterinary Medicine > Department of Clinical Research and Veterinary Public Health (DCR-VPH) > Institute of Bee Health |
UniBE Contributor: |
Neumann, Peter (B) |
Subjects: |
500 Science > 590 Animals (Zoology) 600 Technology > 630 Agriculture |
ISSN: |
0048-9697 |
Publisher: |
Elsevier |
Language: |
English |
Submitter: |
Anna Papach |
Date Deposited: |
21 May 2019 15:33 |
Last Modified: |
29 Mar 2023 23:36 |
Publisher DOI: |
10.1016/j.scitotenv.2018.06.114 |
PubMed ID: |
29909334 |
BORIS DOI: |
10.7892/boris.127020 |
URI: |
https://boris.unibe.ch/id/eprint/127020 |