Final answer:
The bumblebee is the best bee for pollinating tomatoes native to North America due to its buzz pollination technique. Honeybee populations are facing challenges from colony collapse disorder, underscoring the importance of wild pollinators for sustaining crop pollination nationwide.
Step-by-step explanation:
The type of bee that is best at pollinating tomatoes native to North America is the bumblebee. Bumblebees are exceptionally effective pollinators for tomatoes because of their ability to perform buzz pollination, a method that releases pollen more efficiently from certain types of flowers, like tomatoes, which require vibrations to dislodge their pollen. Although honeybees also contribute to pollination and are important for the ecosystem, recent issues such as colony collapse disorder have highlighted the significance of maintaining and protecting diverse bee populations, including wild bees and managed pollinators.
Colony collapse disorder is leading to significant losses in honeybee populations, severely impacting pollination services and threatening many crops that rely on bees. Native bees and other wild pollinators are critical to sustaining agricultural outputs especially in regions of high agricultural intensification. It is increasingly important to conserve these species to ensure there are sufficient pollinators for crops nationwide, as the demand for their services continues to grow alongside global food production.