From the above article:

"Despite its apparent lack of marquee appeal, a decline in pollinator populations is one form of global change that actually has credible potential to alter the shape and structure of terrestrial ecosystems," Berenbaum said.

Animals carry pollen -- which they pick up inadvertently while feeding on a plant's nectar -- and transfer it from one flowering plant to another, sometimes over significant distances. The process not only boosts plant production but increases species' genetic diversity.

Animal pollinators fertilize more than 187,500 flowering plants worldwide; scientists believe these plants, called angiosperms, gained ecological dominance more than 70 million years ago in part because animals help them disperse their pollen so broadly. Other pollinators include hummingbirds and butterflies, as well as wild bees.

In many ways, pollination works as a chain in which even the largest animals depend on small insects, said committee member Peter Kevan, a professor at the University of Guelph, Ontario.

"Canadian black bears need blueberries, and the blueberries need bees" for pollination, Kevan said. "Without the bees you don't have blueberries, and without the blueberries you don't have black bears."

Despite this crucial link, Robinson said, many ordinary citizens fail to grasp how important pollinators are to food production.