As temperatures have risen over the past 110 years, bees are being killed off by increased heat in their southern habitats, but to the surprise of researchers, they are failing to move north to cooler climes, unlike other species.
The finding matters because of the vital job bees do as pollinators for flowers and other plants. Scientists consider bees to be a “keystone species” crucial to the health of the ecological communities they are part of. If they disappeared there would be knock on effects for a wide range of other species.
They are also critical for agriculture. Bumblebees are active in spring, summer and autumn, and help to pollinate crops such as blueberries, clover and cherries. Tomatoes in particular rely on bumblebees because they, unlike honeybees, perform buzz pollination, where their vibrations on the fruit shakes loose its pollen.
Photo: AFP
The research is the first time that scientists have analyzed what is happening to bees’ geographical ranges under climate change and comes on top of substantial declines in bumblebees over the past few decades ascribed to a cocktail of factors including habitat loss, pesticide use and parasites.
University of Ottawa biology professor and lead author of the new research Jeremy Kerr said that given how other species have responded to warmer temperatures by moving northward, his team was “shocked” bees had not done the same.
“We thought bumblebees would do that. Our results show very clearly that that generally is not what they’re doing at all, they’re not expanding their range, unlike butterflies,” Kerr said.
The result, his study says, is that the bees’ range is being compressed across continents.
Bumblebees evolved under a cool climate, unlike butterflies which have a common ancestor in the tropics and are relatively intolerant of heat. The study, published in the journal Science on Thursday, examined natural history records dating back 110 years.
The team checked to see if the bees’ movements were affected by land use or pesticide use, but found they were not.
Kerr said he did not know why the bees are failing to move. “There is a mystery here that we need to solve quickly,” he said.
The researchers suggested that one potential way to mitigate the bees’ reduced range would be to experiment with relocating bumblebee populations northward, as has been done before with butterflies and plants.
However, Kerr admitted there would be ethical considerations, such as whether that would cause problems for other bees.
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