Holger Casselmann / Wikimedia / CC BY-SA 3.0
The climate crisis has caused Japanese cherry blossoms to bloom in October and sped the arrival of spring in much of the U.S. But it turns out that humans aren't the only animals who can trick plants into flowering early.
<p><br/></p>
<p>Scientists have discovered that <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/bees" target="_self">bumblebees</a> can cause plants to flower as much as 30 days ahead of schedule by biting their leaves.</p><p>"I think it's fascinating how much we still don't know about organisms that we think we know really well," study coauthor and ETH Zurich professor Consuelo De Moraes <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-52759804" target="_blank">told BBC News</a>. "It absolutely increases our sense of wonder at the cleverness of nature in all its many forms."</p>
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<p>The discovery, published in <a href="https://science.sciencemag.org/content/368/6493/881" target="_blank">Science Friday</a>, was made by accident. One of De Moraes' students, Foteini Pashalidou, observed buff-tailed bumblebees making small slits in the leaves of greenhouse plants, <a href="https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/2020/05/bumblebees-bite-plants-flower-early/" target="_blank">National Geographic</a> explained. However, the bees didn't appear to eat the leaf bits or bring them back to their nests.</p><p>The researchers did notice that the bees from colonies with less food were the ones most damaging the leaves, <a href="https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/05/hungry-bumblebees-make-plants-flower-early-cutting-holes-their-leaves" target="_blank">Science reported</a>. This led the scientists to wonder if the bees were trying to get the plants to flower early out of hunger, so they set up an experiment to test this hypothesis, as Science described:</p><blockquote>The researchers set up a greenhouse experiment with black mustard (<em>Brassica nigra</em>), a crop they had been studying. Ten plants were put in mesh bags with bumble bees that hadn't eaten any pollen for 3 days; they proceeded to nibble five to 10 holes in each plant. On average, <a href="https://science.sciencemag.org/cgi/doi/10.1126/science.aay0496" target="_blank">those plants flowered after 17 days</a>; undamaged plants that had not been exposed to bumble bees took an average of 33 days, the researchers report today in Science. In a similar experiment, tomato plants sped up their flowering by 30 days.</blockquote>
<p>Further experiments confirmed that the behavior was motivated by hunger. Pollen-deprived bees cut four times as many holes in lab leaves as fully fed bees. Outside the lab, bees cut holes in plants on a rooftop garden in early spring, but stopped doing so as frequently once more flowers began to bloom. The researchers also observed leaf-biting in two wild species: red-tailed and white-tailed bumble bees.</p><p>"That was super exciting," De Moraes told Science.</p><p>While this behavior is new to scientists, we may have encountered its evidence for years without realizing it. </p><p>"You see these semi-circular sort of incisions, often in the leaf," coauthor Dr Nark Mescher told BBC News. "One of the students was saying that they were eating a salad the other day, and they saw that kind of damage on the leaf that was probably from a bumblebee."</p>
<p>Beyond its novelty, the finding has important implications for bumblebees' ability to adapt to the climate crisis, National Geographic explained. As warmer spring temperatures cause <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/pollinators" target="_self">pollinators</a> to awaken before plants flower, this activity could ensure early-rising bees find food. It might also help farmers increase human food supply if they can copy the bees' technique.</p><p>But so far the researchers aren't sure how the bees' trick works. Attempts to duplicate it in the lab by damaging leaves in similar ways were only partially successful.</p><p>"We really tried to replicate it with the best of our ability," De Moraes told BBC News. "It's possible that the bees also have some cue that they are providing to the plants that is specific to the bee. And that could be secretions that we don't know about, but it's something that we plan to investigate."</p>
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Beekeeper Younes Kheir shows Julia Klöckner, federal minister of Food and Agriculture, honeycombs on World Bee Day, May 20, 2020 in Berlin, Germany. Carsten Koall / picture alliance via Getty Images
By Ajit Niranjan
Coronavirus lockdowns that keep farmers from fields and suppliers from markets are restricting another cornerstone of the agriculture industry: bees.
<p>Responsible for pollinating about a third of the plants we eat, <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/bees" target="_self">bees</a> are in short supply and their numbers are <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/insect-apocalypse-dying-ecosystem-species-loss-a-52160360/a-52160360" target="_blank">declining globally</a>. In large, food-exporting countries like the U.S. and China, there are too few local bees to pollinate crops — so beekeepers truck hives thousands of kilometers to pollinate fields.</p><p>Now, travel restrictions to halt the spread of the coronavirus are hurting the pollination industry by keeping bees at home. They are also stopping some beekeepers from feeding their hives, grounding flights that could import bees from abroad, and making it harder to hire seasonal workers to transport them, said Etienne Bruneau of Apimondia, the international federation of beekeepers. Some farmers "arrive in the [pollinating] season without bees and nobody to help them."</p>
<p>In the U.S., which is the world's biggest agricultural exporter but has fewer beehives than Spain, farmers rely on bees trucked long distances on pallets and forklifted into fields. California grows more than 3 in 4 of the world's almonds and each spring about two-thirds of the country's bee population is mobilized to pollinate them. The bees are then loaded onto trucks and sent elsewhere to fields of cherries, apples, blueberries, cranberries, pumpkins and other foods.</p><p>Pollination services contribute $15-20 billion (€13.7- €18.3 billion) to the value of U.S. crop production and, for many beekeepers, it is more lucrative than making honey. When bees gather nectar, pollen sticks to their bodies and rubs off onto other plants they land on. Harvest losses without their help can range from 5-10% for grains like rapeseed to as high as 80% for almonds and cherries, said Bruneau. </p>
<h3>Food Security</h3><p>Bees, together with pollinators like bats and birds, underpin the global food system. But their populations are dwindling and colonies collapsing as a result of human activity like building settlements, overusing pesticides, farming with monocultures and changing the climate through greenhouse gas emissions. A UN-backed assessment of <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/why-biodiversity-loss-hurts-humans-as-much-as-climate-change/a-48579014" target="_blank">life on earth</a> last year found that pollinator loss threatens $235-$577 billion in annual crop output.</p><p>While experts say the food security risk from restrictions to bee movements is small, it represents yet another coronavirus-induced shock to a global food system already reeling from the pandemic. The <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/world-food-program-act-now-to-prevent-coronavirus-famine/a-53219305" target="_blank">World Food Programme</a> warned last month that COVID-19 could double the number of people facing acute hunger — currently estimated at 135 million people — by the end of 2020.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/climate-change">Climate change</a>, conflict and poverty have worked together to drive food crises.</p><p>Across East Africa, the Middle East and South Asia, <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/locust-swarm-africa-wildfires-australia-climate/a-52208213" target="_blank">swarms of locusts</a> have ravaged vegetation after a year of weather extremes that included abnormally heavy rains and strong cyclones. While African bees have not been greatly affected by <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/do-coronavirus-lockdowns-in-africa-make-sense/a-53228689" target="_blank">lockdowns</a> — unlike in North America and Asia, beekeepers typically use fixed hives and do not move them large distances — pesticides to fight locusts have, in turn, hurt pollination, said David Mukomana, Apimondia's Africa president.</p><p>"Many [farmers] resorted to aerial sprays that had serious effects on many pollinating insects, bees included."</p><p>Meanwhile, across Asia and South America, <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/food-security">food security</a> is particularly threatened by a growing dependence on <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/pollinators">pollinators</a>, according to a study published in the journal Global Change Biology last year. Areas that are more biologically diverse encourage pollination, researchers say, but countries are farming in ways that hurt <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/biodiversity">biodiversity</a>.</p><p>What's more, the increase in pollinator dependency has not been matched by a rise in managed honeybees, the authors wrote, adding that this was an "alarm call" for pollinator-friendly farming methods such as targeted use of insecticide and planting hedgerows next to crops.</p><p>"The picture is worse for wild pollinators that are in decline in several regions," the authors wrote.</p>
<h3>Learning From Bees</h3><p>Even as lockdowns keep industrial bees grounded, wild bees may benefit from <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/coronavirus-air-pollution-might-raise-risk-of-fatality/a-52977422" target="_blank">a drop in pollution and traffic</a> as humans stay at home. A study published in the <em>Journal of Insect Conservation</em> in 2015 estimated that billions of pollinating insects were killed on roads each year in North America alone. A global fall in transport may have kept some bees safe.</p><p>Yet despite these short-term benefits, "lockdown will do virtually nothing to reverse the major causes of bumblebee declines, which are habitat loss and degradation," a spokesperson from the Bumblebee Conservation Trust said.</p><p>Bees also have their own viruses to deal with. Like people, honeybees live in large groups and thrive on social interactions.</p><p>"That poses risks when it comes to pathogen transmissions," said Adam Dolezal, an insect scientist at the University of Illinois. "If a pathogen evolves that can circumvent those risks, the bees have to respond or become more infected."</p>
<p>Honeybees may be in an "evolutionary arms race" with the deadly Israeli acute paralysis virus, according to a study published in the journal <em>PNAS</em> last month. While bees are known to socially distance from infected nest mates and touch each other less, the virus has evolved a way of sneaking sick bees past guards of other colonies and spreading itself into new hives.<br></p><p>In the wild, where beehives are sparsely spread and there is little interaction between colonies, this evolutionary trait offers little advantage. But in industrial farms — with up to thousands of bees per square kilometer — it gives viruses a greater chance of starting new outbreaks.</p><p>It suggests that intensive agriculture can increase the danger of pathogens that target insects, as well as humans and other animals. Modern farming practices have come under scrutiny since the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic as scientists have sounded alarm bells about the dangers of <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/coronavirus-pandemic-linked-to-destruction-of-wildlife-and-worlds-ecosystems/a-53078480" target="_blank">habitat destruction and zoonotic diseases</a>.</p><p>This doesn't mean we should stop keeping bees this way, but it does show how manipulating natural environments can give advantages to viruses, said Dolezal, who co-authored the study. "We should be on the lookout for places where pathogens can find chinks in the armor of the organism."</p>
<p><em>Reposted with permission from <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/bees-coronavirus-lockdowns-pollination/a-53500622?maca=en-VAM_volltext_ecowatch-28485-html-copypaste" target="_blank">DW</a>.</em></p>From Your Site Articles
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A blue bee on a firebush in Palm Beach, Florida on Sept. 10, 2016. Bob Peterson / CC BY 2.0
Scientists have "rediscovered" a rare blue bee that they feared was extinct.
<p>Until this spring, the "ultra-rare" blue calamintha bee (<em>Osmia calaminthae</em>) had only been observed in four locations in central Florida, and it hadn't been seen at all since 2016. So when <a href="https://www.floridamuseum.ufl.edu/" target="_blank">Florida Museum of Natural History</a> research team Chase Kimmel and Jaret Daniels set out to document the bee's population status and habits, they weren't sure what they would find.</p><p>"I was open to the possibility that we may not find the bee at all so that first moment when we spotted it in the field was really exciting," Kimmel, a postdoctoral researcher, said in a museum <a href="https://www.floridamuseum.ufl.edu/science/floridas-rare-blue-calamintha-bee-rediscovered/" target="_blank">press release</a>.</p>
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<p>Kimmel first spotted the bee March 9, he told <a href="https://eu.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2020/05/16/rare-blue-calamintha-bees-spotted-lake-wales-ridge-florida/5207086002/" target="_blank">USA TODAY in an email</a>. Since then, he has spotted the elusive pollinator in three of its previous locations and six additiona locations, according to the museum.</p><p>The research could have important implications for the bee's chances of survival. Florida's State Wildlife Action Plan lists the bee as a species of greatest <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/conservation" target="_self">conservation</a> need, and the study will help determine if it warrants <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/endangered-species-act" target="_self">Endangered Species Act</a> protections.</p><p>The bee is so vulnerable in part because it is thought to rely on a threatened plant called Ashe's calamint and live only in Florida's Lake Wales Ridge region, a hotspot of <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/biodiversity" target="_self">biodiversity</a> that the museum calls "one of the nation's fastest-disappearing ecosystems."</p>
<p>The ridge hosts so much unique life because, when most of Florida was underwater, it was raised above the waves in high sand dunes that acted like islands, giving isolated ecosystems a chance to flourish. Now, these habitats are islands of pine scrub in a sea of orange groves.</p><p>"It's one thing to read about habitat loss and development and another to be driving for 30-40 minutes through miles of orange groves just to get to a really small conservation site," Kimmel said. "It puts into perspective how much habitat loss affects all the animals that live in this area."</p>
<p>The bee also exhibits unique behaviors. It gathers pollen by bobbing its head side to side to collect it on its facial hairs. The very first time he saw the bee, Kimmel got a chance to see this in action.</p><p>"We observed a shiny little blue bee grabbing the flower and rubbing its head on the top portion of the flower two or three times before moving on to another flower," <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2020/05/16/us/florida-blue-calamintha-bee-trnd/index.html" target="_blank">Kimmel told CNN</a>. "In reading about this unique behavior we were pretty shocked to see it."</p><p>Kimmel and Daniels' research is set to last two years and determine the bee's feeding and nesting habits. So far, the team has found another plant the bee will use if it can't find Ashe's calamint.</p>
<p>The research has been hampered somewhat by the <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/coronavirus" target="_self">coronavirus</a> pandemic, since travel restrictions mean Kimmel is in the field alone during the bee's flight season from mid-March to early May.</p><p>"It's a very time-limited flight. Now is when the bulk of that activity has to take place," Daniels, who is acting as Kimmel's adviser and is also the director of the museum's <a href="https://www.floridamuseum.ufl.edu/index.php/mcguire/home/" target="_blank">McGuire Center for Lepidoptera and Biodiversity</a>, said in the press release. "Chase is doing a fantastic job and we're getting a lot of great data, but if it wasn't for the COVID-19 virus we would have had more people in the field, so it has definitely scaled back what we're able to do."</p>
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Planting Projects, Backyard Habitats Can Re-Create Livable Natural Spaces
30 April
Insights + Opinion
Portland, Oregon's local Backyard Habitat Certification Program is a collaboration between Portland Audubon and Columbia Land Trust. Gaylen Beatty
By April M. Short
The world's wildlife is in danger of dying off, and inevitably taking humanity out with it. Humans have destroyed enormous portions of the planet's natural spaces, and caused a climate disaster as well as the unprecedented acceleration of mass extinction events. Among the many species struggling to stay afloat are the butterflies, birds, bats, bees and other pollinators we depend upon in order to grow basic food crops. People cannot live without the earth's diverse wild plants and animals.
<p>Scientists agree that continued disruption of the earth's ecosystems <a href="https://go.ind.media/e/546932/to-humanity-as-climate-change-/f8lnx2/609037909?h=Jm1ZmFSO2X6U0D521QCpvsHnTSsQNE3M8auqr5zV5NY" target="_blank">threatens</a> the future survival of humanity as much as <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/climate-change" target="_self">climate change</a> does. And the two aren't entirely separate issues; healthy <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/forests" target="_self">forests</a> and soil systems, for example, sequester carbon naturally. As they are destroyed, there is increased carbon in the atmosphere. A <a href="https://go.ind.media/e/546932/content-365-6448-76/f8lnx4/609037909?h=Jm1ZmFSO2X6U0D521QCpvsHnTSsQNE3M8auqr5zV5NY" target="_blank">study</a> published in 2019 in the journal Science found that forest restoration is among the best possible climate change solutions.</p><p>The current pandemic brings these issues home, as the problems of climate change, habitat destruction and pollinator decline are <a href="https://go.ind.media/e/546932/ollinators-and-then-the-virus-/f8lnx6/609037909?h=Jm1ZmFSO2X6U0D521QCpvsHnTSsQNE3M8auqr5zV5NY" target="_blank">intricately linked</a>, as outlined in an article by Dr. Arshad M. Khan and <a href="https://go.ind.media/e/546932/author-meenamiriamyust-/f8lnx8/609037909?h=Jm1ZmFSO2X6U0D521QCpvsHnTSsQNE3M8auqr5zV5NY" target="_blank">Meena Miriam Yust</a> published in Modern Diplomacy in April.</p>
<p>And, as explained by Ensia's environment editor John Vidal in an <a href="https://go.ind.media/e/546932/ons-for-coronavirus-to-emerge-/f8lnxb/609037909?h=Jm1ZmFSO2X6U0D521QCpvsHnTSsQNE3M8auqr5zV5NY" target="_blank">article</a> that appeared in Scientific American in March, the destruction of wildlife habitat in particular creates breeding grounds for new viruses — and is a likely cause of the devastating current outbreak of novel coronavirus.</p><p>Vidal writes:<br></p><blockquote>"Only a decade or two ago it was widely thought that tropical forests and intact natural environments teeming with exotic wildlife threatened humans by harboring the viruses and pathogens that lead to new diseases in humans like Ebola, HIV and dengue.<br><br>"But a number of researchers today think that it is actually humanity's destruction of biodiversity that creates the conditions for new viruses and diseases like COVID-19 … to arise — with profound health and economic impacts in rich and poor countries alike. In fact, a new discipline, planetary health, is emerging that focuses on the increasingly visible connections among the well-being of humans, other living things and entire ecosystems."</blockquote><p>As Vidal notes, this likely won't be the only pandemic we experience. Keeping the next one at bay hinges on protecting and stewarding habitat spaces for wildlife.</p>
<p>While the outlook on both pandemic and climate change can seem bleak, we're also witnessing a demonstration of how quickly the planet can repair itself when people merely slow down a little. In just a matter of months, without changing much other than how often we go out to work, spend and gather in public spaces, the world's skies have cleared up in places that were murky with smog for generations.</p><p>The pandemic has caused a <a href="https://go.ind.media/e/546932/-global-drop-in-air-pollution-/f8lnxd/609037909?h=Jm1ZmFSO2X6U0D521QCpvsHnTSsQNE3M8auqr5zV5NY" target="_blank">steep decline</a> in air pollution levels around the globe. Weeks without hordes of tourists have deepened the blue of <a href="https://go.ind.media/e/546932/anals-scli-intl-scn-index-html/f8lnxg/609037909?h=Jm1ZmFSO2X6U0D521QCpvsHnTSsQNE3M8auqr5zV5NY" target="_blank">the waterways of Venice, Italy,</a> and there are reports of fish being visible through the clear waters for the first time in decades; the Himalayas are <a href="https://go.ind.media/e/546932/-in-india-amid-lockdown-720012/f8lnxj/609037909?h=Jm1ZmFSO2X6U0D521QCpvsHnTSsQNE3M8auqr5zV5NY" target="_blank">visible</a> in parts of northern India that haven't been able to catch a glimpse of them in 30 years; Los Angeles's famous traffic has <a href="https://go.ind.media/e/546932/rants-and-other-pandemic-perks/f8lnxl/609037909?h=Jm1ZmFSO2X6U0D521QCpvsHnTSsQNE3M8auqr5zV5NY" target="_blank">eased up</a>. It's clear that the small efforts by large numbers of people can and do ripple throughout the world, and they have the potential to combat mass destruction. If so much can begin to change when all we do is ease our operations a little, what can change if we make concerted efforts together in support of nature's resilience?</p>
<h3>Planting Habitat From the Grassroots</h3><p><a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/gardening">Gardening</a> to support pollinators and other wildlife is one way individuals can <a href="https://go.ind.media/e/546932/d6-44bb-4367-a718-98346e928869/f8lnxn/609037909?h=Jm1ZmFSO2X6U0D521QCpvsHnTSsQNE3M8auqr5zV5NY" target="_blank">help</a>. The movement for native habitat planting seeks to re-supply wildlife with the plants and habitat spaces that support them, by way of individual garden projects.</p><p>Since the 1970s, the native plant movement has encouraged people to garden and grow native species of plants, which can provide biodiverse habitat for birds, butterflies, amphibians and other creatures that live among us. Out of the native plant movement, many backyard and community habitat gardening certification programs have emerged across the country, to educate and incentivize people to plant habitat gardens.</p><p>The largest habitat gardening certification effort in the U.S. is the National Wildlife Federation (NWF)'s Community Wildlife Habitat Program (<a href="https://go.ind.media/e/546932/nityWildlifeHabitat-Home-About/f8lnxq/609037909?h=Jm1ZmFSO2X6U0D521QCpvsHnTSsQNE3M8auqr5zV5NY" target="_blank">CWHP</a>), which offers tools and a certification program not just for individual backyard gardens, but for whole communities interested in participating. The program started in 1997 in the small town of Alpine, California, in San Diego County, as a grassroots effort by a few individuals who decided to team up and encourage local native garden projects. Now, the program is a concerted national effort that works with approximately 200 certified <a href="https://go.ind.media/e/546932/abitat-Home-CurrentCommunities/f8lnxs/609037909?h=Jm1ZmFSO2X6U0D521QCpvsHnTSsQNE3M8auqr5zV5NY" target="_blank">communities and municipalities across the country</a>, including some major cities, such as Charlotte, North Carolina, and Houston, Texas. </p><p>NWF has encouraged people to create habitat gardens for more than 40 years through its <a href="https://go.ind.media/e/546932/garden/f8lnxv/609037909?h=Jm1ZmFSO2X6U0D521QCpvsHnTSsQNE3M8auqr5zV5NY" target="_blank">Garden for Wildlife</a>. The CWHP builds upon that longstanding initiative, with a science-based program framework for community leaders to restore wildlife habitat — including wildlife corridors and road passage areas — and engage residents. The end goal for areas that participate is to be certified as a wildlife-friendly community through the NWF.</p><p>The program encourages communities to integrate a set of wildlife-friendly practices into plans for parks and general sustainability. It offers tools for its members to educate as well as motivate private community members — residents, schools, places of worship, and others — to get involved and transform their garden spaces via native trees and plants, and non-toxic practices.</p>
<p>Patrick Fitzgerald, senior director of community wildlife for NWF, says anyone can get involved with the habitat gardening effort, even people in highly urban areas, via container gardens.</p><p>"If you're planting a garden, you can really make an impact for wildlife and the environment literally right outside your front door," he says, noting that the <a href="https://go.ind.media/e/546932/2020-04-28/f8lnxx/609037909?h=Jm1ZmFSO2X6U0D521QCpvsHnTSsQNE3M8auqr5zV5NY" target="_blank">monarch butterfly</a> offers a particularly potent example of a species that might be positively affected by collective individual efforts. The Western monarch's populations have been plummeting, down from the millions in the 1980s, to 200,000 in 2017, and just 30,000 as of 2018, as reported in March 2020 by <a href="https://go.ind.media/e/546932/science-monarch-butterfly-html/f8lnxz/609037909?h=Jm1ZmFSO2X6U0D521QCpvsHnTSsQNE3M8auqr5zV5NY" target="_blank">The New York Times</a>.</p><p>"The example of the monarch shows how the simple act of planting milkweeds in your garden, in a pot and just about anywhere, can have an impact for a very specific species," adds Fitzgerald. "A lot of folks, myself included, just love this monarch butterfly for its migration and metamorphosis. It's an amazing species. We've seen a call to action for the monarch butterfly, and so many people are planting milkweed and other native plants that they need to survive in their yards and telling us about it. … Knowing that you're part of millions of people doing this, all for the sake of one black and orange butterfly, is a pretty powerful thing. It's just tremendously rewarding."</p><p>The NWF program also works with communities interested in larger restoration efforts, such as wildlife thoroughfares, urban forestry, water conservation, planting for climate resilience and green infrastructure efforts.</p><p>"In terms of climate resilience, a lot of the actions that our teams in our cities, counties and communities are taking have multiple benefits for wildlife and for people — and they're also helpful in terms of addressing climate change in different ways," Fitzgerald says.</p><p>He points to efforts like reforestation and planting trees along waterways to reduce erosion and mitigate runoff into waterways, or efforts to increase soil carbon storage.</p><p>"A lot of folks who participate in our programs, they just love wildlife, and from there, they're looking for strategies to attract more wildlife to their neighborhoods and communities," he says.</p>
<p>Houston, Texas, is one of the largest communities certified by the NWF Community Wildlife Habitat Program. Kelli Ondracek, the natural resources manager for the City of Houston Parks and Recreation Department, says that when the city started working toward the certification in 2016 it was a natural fit, as many of the efforts already underway in the city overlapped with the NWF's habitat certification program. The city of Houston partners with the Houston Audubon, for instance, to replace invasive plant species in public areas with bird-friendly natives, and Houston is a certified "Bird City" of Texas by the state's Parks and Wildlife program.</p><p>In order to encourage Houston residents to participate and plant backyard habitat gardens, Ondracek says they began to include information about the certification effort at all of their regular events. Since the city was already offering many of the educational events and information required for the NWF certification, once they got enough homes and common areas involved with the project, it came together citywide, by way of volunteer efforts.</p><p>Among the bigger habitat initiatives in Houston is its longstanding <a href="https://go.ind.media/e/546932/olutions-to-unnatural-flooding/f8lny2/609037909?h=Jm1ZmFSO2X6U0D521QCpvsHnTSsQNE3M8auqr5zV5NY" target="_blank">prairie restoration</a> project, which replants fields full of native prairie grasses and wildflowers throughout the city's parks, medians, and other relevant public spaces. Ondracek, who oversees the city's greenhouses, says the prairie restoration efforts have involved collecting seeds and propagating more than 10,000 gallon pots' worth of native plants.</p><p>Ondracek says the wildlife habitat project in Houston involves taking inventory of the land in their parks system — which is vast — and assess what that land would have historically looked like. Then, they work to re-create it.</p><p>"We try to get it as close as possible back to the historic habitat, with a focus on really diverse native species," Ondracek says. "We're really trying to focus on native plants — and we're growing them ourselves because often you can't really purchase them — so that we can get our restoration projects completed."</p><p>The prairie restoration project serves to provide habitat, and also to mitigate climate change–related threats such as increased flooding and drought, as detailed in a Christian Science Monitor <a href="https://go.ind.media/e/546932/olutions-to-unnatural-flooding/f8lny2/609037909?h=Jm1ZmFSO2X6U0D521QCpvsHnTSsQNE3M8auqr5zV5NY" target="_blank">article</a> published in October 2019.</p><p>Ondracek says Houston also has a native tree farm and is working to replant trees along waterways in 70 of its parks, with the goal of planting more than 200,000 trees along the city's bayous and other water systems. Trees along the waterways, known as <a href="https://go.ind.media/e/546932/es-riparian-forest-buffers-php/f8lny4/609037909?h=Jm1ZmFSO2X6U0D521QCpvsHnTSsQNE3M8auqr5zV5NY" target="_blank">riparian buffers</a>, serve to reduce the impacts of flooding and improve water quality for both humans and wildlife. The goal of this effort is twofold: to rehabitat these spaces as wildlife corridors, and to create a more climate-resilient future for the city. The tree project acts as part of Houston's <a href="https://go.ind.media/e/546932/yc88f828/f8lny6/609037909?h=Jm1ZmFSO2X6U0D521QCpvsHnTSsQNE3M8auqr5zV5NY" target="_blank">Climate Action Plan</a>, which centers on large restoration projects like tree installations to mitigate inevitable increased flooding and help sequester carbon.</p>
<p>Many cities, counties and states around the U.S. offer their own habitat certification programs, unrelated to the NWF's certification. Portland, Oregon's local <a href="https://go.ind.media/e/546932/2020-04-28/f8lny8/609037909?h=Jm1ZmFSO2X6U0D521QCpvsHnTSsQNE3M8auqr5zV5NY" target="_blank">Backyard Habitat Certification Program (BHCP)</a>, for instance, is a collaboration between Portland Audubon and Columbia Land Trust.</p><p>Megan Van de Mark, the Portland BHCP's program manager, says the localized program is particularly hands-on and serves more than 6,100 properties throughout Oregon's Clark, Clackamas, Multnomah, and Washington counties. The program originated in Portland, where more than 4,600 properties are enrolled, and works hands-on with community sites, including religious institutions, multi-family complexes, schools, etc., as well as private backyards.</p><p>"One person can make a difference where they live by incorporating native plants in their yards and gardens, by removing noxious weeds, by reducing or eliminating the use of pesticides, and by taking actions that steward wildlife and manage stormwater at home," Van de Mark says in an email.</p><p>Van de Mark says the program shows that the cumulative actions of individual people can add up to a significant positive impact.</p><p>"An ecosystem is an interconnected system," Van de Mark says. "What each of us does makes a difference specifically because we're all connected. The ecosystems within which we reside are home to many. By building habitat where you live and reside (i.e., by planting native plants, removing noxious weeds, reducing or eliminating the use of pesticides, and by taking actions that steward wildlife and manage stormwater on-site), you can help ensure that birds, pollinators, and other species also have enough to eat, a way to get around, and a place to call home. We're all in this together."<br></p>
<p><em>This article was reposted with permission from <a href="https://go.ind.media/e/546932/local-peace-economy-/f8lnyb/609037909?h=Jm1ZmFSO2X6U0D521QCpvsHnTSsQNE3M8auqr5zV5NY" target="_blank">Local Peace Economy</a>, a project of the Independent Media Institute.</em></p>From Your Site Articles
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Deadly Pathogen Alters Honey Bee Behavior to Gain Access to Foreign Hives, Researchers Find
30 April
Animals
Honey bees touch their mouthparts and antennae together to share food and information, but the practice also can transmit viruses. Fred Zwicky / University of Illinois
Honey bees guarding the entrances to their respective hives are twice as likely to allow access to virus-infected trespassers, suggesting that the pathogen is capable of altering the insect's behavior and physiology to boost its spread to neighboring colonies.
<p>Israeli acute paralysis virus (<a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/agricultural-and-biological-sciences/israeli-acute-paralysis-virus" target="_blank">IAPV</a>) is a widespread virus that has been <a href="https://journals.plos.org/plospathogens/article?id=10.1371/journal.ppat.1004261" target="_blank">linked</a> with colony losses, such as the mysterious outbreak of honey bee <a href="https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/09/070906140803.htm" target="_blank">Colony Collapse Disorder</a> across the U.S. Publishing their work in <a href="https://www.pnas.org/content/early/2020/04/21/2002268117" target="_blank"><em>Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences</em></a>, researchers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign determined that the virus is capable of changing certain host behaviors and physical traits, particularly in social contexts, of one of the world's most critical pollinators.</p><p>"The most important finding of our study is that IAPV infection increases the likelihood that infected bees are accepted by foreign colonies," <a href="https://news.illinois.edu/view/6367/808197" target="_blank">said</a> lead study author and professor of <a href="https://sib.illinois.edu/entomology/" target="_blank">entomology</a> <a href="https://sib.illinois.edu/profile/adolezal" target="_blank">Adam Dolezal</a>. "Somehow, the infected bees are able to circumvent the guards of foreign colonies, which they shouldn't be able to do."</p>
<p>IAPV is considered a "category of concern" and previous research has shown that honey bees infected with the virus are more likely to get lost when returning to their home hives. To determine how the pathogen manipulates host behavior, researchers built on previous work that employed an automated system to study bees' use of <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0003347203922561" target="_blank">trophallaxis</a>, the regurgitation of food and other liquids to feed colony members.</p><p>"Honey bees use trophallaxis to share food with each other as well as hormones and other signaling molecules that can affect their physiology and behavior. They do it in pairs by touching their mouthparts and antennae, and each bee does this with hundreds of partners a day," said study co-author and entomologist <a href="https://www.igb.illinois.edu/people/eab" target="_blank">Gene Robinson</a>.</p><p>"Trophallaxis is essential to the spread of information and nutrition throughout the hive, but unfortunately, a behavior performed with such close social contact also allows viral infections to be transmitted through a hive."</p>
<p>Bees were tagged with a barcode for continuous monitoring to determine how IAPV affects the use of trophallaxis. Observations showed that individuals infected with IAPV were just as mobile but engaged less in trophallaxis with home colony members, which protected their hive from viral infection. However, when a honey bee was placed at the entrance of a <em>foreign </em>hive, bees were more likely to engage through trophallaxis with guards – and those guards were then more likely to permit hive entrance to infected bees than healthy ones.</p><p>Further analysis determined that the virus also changes the chemistry of hydrocarbons that coat the bees' exoskeletons – in essence changing how they smell – suggesting that the infected bees may also be "behaving in a way that is meant to appease the guards by engaging more in trophallaxus."</p><p>The findings show that the virus is evolving in ways that enhance its ability to spread, which could be detrimental to honey bee colonies in the long-run. Human-induced environmental changes create conditions that make emerging diseases more likely – a problem that the study authors write is "likely to worsen as humans continue to move domesticated species around the world and adopt increasingly intense management practices."</p>
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To save insects we must give them the space they need to survive. asadykov / iStock / Getty Images Plus
By Andrew Urevig
Butterflies and bees, ants and beetles, cockroaches and flies — whether loved or feared, insects help humans. Just sample the ways these animals enable life as we know it: they pollinate crops, give us new medicines, break down waste and support entire ecosystems.
Yet many insects around the world are in decline.
<p>Writing in the journal Biological Conservation, more than two dozen scientists from countries around the world are <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0006320719317823" target="_blank">warning</a> of a wave of insect extinctions — and urging swift steps to curb the crisis. In a <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0006320719317793#ec0030" target="_blank">paper sketching solutions</a>, the scientists say that to save insects we must give them the space they need to survive in the face of <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/climate-change" target="_self">climate change</a>: livable, interconnected habitats flush with a rich <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/biodiversity">diversity</a> of plant and animal life.</p><p>Ensuring that insects have room to thrive means setting aside local habitat, including parks, gardens, roadsides and the edges of farm fields. It also entails protecting continent-scale migratory passages like the <a href="https://e360.yale.edu/features/can-the-monarch-highway-help-save-a-butterfly-under-siege" target="_blank">corridor that monarch butterflies traverse</a> from Minnesota to Mexico.</p>
<p>Not just any areas will do, the researchers caution. Insects need quality space, too. The closer an area is to the condition it was in before humans altered it for the worse, the better. "We need to move the needle of novel landscapes towards one of greater ecological integrity and more complex interaction networks," Michael Samways, one of the paper's authors and an insect conservationist at South Africa's Stellenbosch University, wrote in an email to Ensia.</p><p>Space that's free from pollution and invasive species, with diverse plant life and a varied landscape, will best help insects — and that includes enough room for the six-legged critters to find food, seek mates and just rest.</p>
<p>"Part of being able to move around is to be able to 'dodge' natural enemies, from bats and birds, to other insects like predatory ladybugs and parasitic wasps," Samways explained.</p><p>Our changing climate pushes many insects to evolve, move or die — a dynamic that often puts them up against the extensive transformation humans have wrought on Earth's surface. Habitat fragmentation exacerbates the threat by limiting insects' ability to traverse the landscapes separating them from more suitable surroundings.</p><p>But with quality space that's connected by <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/conservation" target="_self">conservation</a> corridors and other adequate habitat, the researchers write, insects can leave enough healthy offspring to sustain their species.</p>
<p>Scientists know what insects need, but scaling proven strategies up to the massive level needed to make a dent in extinctions is a different challenge entirely.</p><p>"Especially when you're thinking about insects, you have to get public buy-in," said DeAnna Beasley, an ecologist at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga who was not involved in the paper. Highlighting this key hurdle, the report authors bemoaned "the current lack of sufficient collective political will and concerted effort" to save insects.</p>
<p>To build that will, the scientists call for greater efforts to communicate the value of insects to society. For example, Beasley has used cicadas — a kind of insect that needs "a large, contiguous space" to sustain big populations — in <a href="https://bioone.org/journals/Florida-Entomologist/volume-95/issue-2/024.095.0236/The-use-of-Citizen-Scientists-to-Record-and-Map-13/10.1653/024.095.0236.full" target="_blank">citizen science research</a>, getting more data for <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/science/" target="_self">science</a> while building more appreciation for insects among the public. In one project the paper spotlights, students at schools in Austria successfully <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10841-017-0010-3" target="_blank">assessed the quality of space for butterflies</a>, laying the groundwork for follow-up by trained scientists.</p><p>With many insects unnoticed or misunderstood, the researchers also recommend the continued use of "insect icons" and "flagship species" to promote support for conservation.</p>
<p>"Highlighting the animals that people know best is vital for our effort to get people engaged in invertebrate or insect conservation," says Scott Hoffman Black, executive director of the Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation, who was not involved in the new paper. Black also underscores that charismatic insects are just a starting point.</p><p>"We need people to understand the consequences of not taking action and give them solutions that they can enact in their own lives," Black says. "As well as getting them to push their governments to take action."</p>
<p><em>Reposted with permission from <a href="https://ensia.com/notable/insects-extinction-habitat/" target="_blank">Ensia</a>.</em></p>From Your Site Articles
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SolStock / Moment / Getty Images
By Tyler Wells Lynch
For years, Toni Genberg assumed a healthy garden was a healthy habitat. That's how she approached the landscaping around her home in northern Virginia. On trips to the local gardening center, she would privilege aesthetics, buying whatever looked pretty, "which was typically ornamental or invasive plants," she said. Then, in 2014, Genberg attended a talk by Doug Tallamy, a professor of entomology at the University of Delaware. "I learned I was actually starving our wildlife," she said.
<p>The problem, Tallamy explained, is with the picky diets of plant-eating insects. Most of these bugs — roughly 90 percent — eat and reproduce on only certain native plant species, specifically those with whom they share an evolutionary history. Without these carefully tuned adaptations of specific plants, insect populations suffer. And because bugs themselves are a key food source for birds, rodents, amphibians, and other critters, that dependence on natives — and the consequences of not having them — works its way up the food chain. Over time, landscapes that consist mainly of invasive or nonnative plants could become dead zones.</p>
<p class=""><em>Reposted with permission from <a href="https://www.yesmagazine.org/environment/2020/02/07/yard-sustainability-native-plants/" target="_blank">YES! Magazine</a>.<a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/r/entryeditor/2645075454#/" target="_self"><br/></a> </em><em></em></p>
<p>Croplands can be just as destructive, making up nearly 20 percent of all land in the United States. And that doesn't even include the single largest irrigated crop in the country. Covering more than 40 million acres in the U.S., grass lawn consumes an area roughly the size of New England — land that, for the sake of habitat conservation, might as well be pavement.</p><p>Considering how little habitat and food these monocultures provide, and the incredible amount of resources they require, is there any wonder why the global insect populations <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/feb/10/plummeting-insect-numbers-threaten-collapse-of-nature" target="_blank">are plummeting</a>?</p><p>But there are solutions. One, at least in theory, is quite simple: Plant more native species. It's a calling that has spoken to a growing number of park managers, home gardeners, and landscapers — many of whom trace a direct line of inspiration to Tallamy. His research has helped overturn decades of harmful horticultural practice, forcing us to rethink how we tend to both public and private spaces.</p>
SaSavanna Syndrome
<p>In lieu of monocrops, landscapes with a larger, more diverse biomass of native species help support pollinators, sequester carbon, capture runoff, and rebuild habitats. <a href="https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/09/190905094056.htm" target="_blank">One recent study</a> found habitats with two or three native tree species are on average 25 percent to 30 percent more productive than monocultures, meaning they contribute that much more food and energy to an ecosystem. Habitats with five native tree species were 50 percent more productive. Wildlife is drawn to lands teeming with native plants.</p><p>For individuals who'd like to live a more sustainable lifestyle, the simple message of planting more native species is both productive and rewarding — a refreshing contrast to <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/true-north/2017/jul/17/neoliberalism-has-conned-us-into-fighting-climate-change-as-individuals" target="_blank">consumerist </a><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/true-north/2017/jul/17/neoliberalism-has-conned-us-into-fighting-climate-change-as-individuals" target="_blank">exhortations</a> that blame the collective problem of environmental collapse on individual shopping choices. Like anything else, real change has to happen at the macro level, especially when it comes to turfgrass — a crop with deep cultural, even evolutionary roots.</p><p>Sociobiologists refer to the preference humans have for vast swaths of low-cut grass as "Savanna Syndrome." Open grasslands allowed our primitive ancestors to keep an eye out for predators. So even today, on a deep level, we feel safer when we can see to the horizon.</p><p>Until the Industrial Age, the demands of agriculture kept lawns at bay. They were seen mostly as status symbols that said a person had enough money to brush off the territorial demands of farmland. The invention of the lawnmower democratized the lawn, and further embedded its pathological hold on our psyches.</p><p>But lawns require huge quantities of water and often chemical treatments to maintain them — not to mention the emissions produced by two-cycle lawnmowers. According to the Environmental Protection Agency, running a lawnmower for one hour <a href="https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2001/05/010529234907.htm" target="_blank">emits as much air pollution</a> as driving a typical car 100 miles. This resource allocation becomes more and more difficult to justify as climate change continues to dry up once-productive habitats. As a monocrop, lawns displace landscapes that could benefit people, plants, animals, and insects. It's time for us to reconsider lawns on a grand scale, several researchers have concluded.</p><p>Considering how entrenched lawns are in the American imagination, to uproot them will require some give-and-take. Advocates say we need a culture shift as well as policies that support it.</p><p>"As climate change and droughts worsen, we might get to a point where there's political support to outlaw lawns," said Sarah B. Schindler, a professor of law at the University of Maine, who has written several papers about the legal authority of municipalities to ban lawns. "I do think we're seeing a change in norms, and I think part of that is tied to rising awareness of climate catastrophe."</p><p>Part of that work is simply raising awareness. Many people don't think about the possibility of their yards as anything but turfgrass. As Tallamy puts it, lawn is the default landscape, but it doesn't have to be. "People don't realize there's an alternative."</p>Choosing Native Plants
<p>Some communities are beginning to impose alternatives. In <a href="https://www.latimes.com/home/la-hm-ga-turf-removal-class-20190307-story.html" target="_blank">California</a>, <a href="https://www.coloradoindependent.com/2019/07/18/rebate-turf-replacement-water-conservation/" target="_blank">Colorado</a>, and <a href="http://cronkitenewsonline.com/2013/10/cities-offering-rebates-to-encourage-residents-to-convert-yards-to-xeriscaping/index.html" target="_blank">Arizona</a>, where water shortages are a growing crisis, cities offer rebates for each square foot of lawn replaced with native or water-saving landscapes—a process known as "xeriscaping." In wetter climes, <a href="https://doee.dc.gov/service/raingardenrebate" target="_blank">Washington, DC</a>, and cities in <a href="https://lincoln.ne.gov/city/ltu/watershed/grant/landscape.htm" target="_blank">Nebraska</a>, <a href="https://www.12000raingardens.org/about-rain-gardens/incentives/" target="_blank">Washington state</a>, <a href="https://www.cityofames.org/home/showdocument?id=3456" target="_blank">Iowa</a> and <a href="https://www.southstpaul.org/680/Rebate---Rain-Barrel-Rain-Gardens" target="_blank">Minnesota</a> have implemented rebate programs for the planting of rain gardens, which capture and infiltrate more runoff than grass. The city of <a href="https://www.alexandriava.gov/uploadedFiles/recreation/parks/Managed%20Meadows%20and%20Grassland%20Habitats%20in%20the%20City%20of%20Alexandria,%20Virginia.pdf" target="_blank">Alexandria, Virginia</a>, recently changed its municipal mowing to allow for the growth of meadows and glades in city parks. </p><p>Throughout the country, local groups are advocating for the planting of natives on roadsides, medians, campuses, and parks. Some, like <a href="http://www.foodnotlawns.com/" target="_blank">Food Not Lawns</a>, encourage homeowners and neighborhoods to replace lawns with edible plants to establish food sovereignty and food security within their communities. Others take a more clandestine approach by planting "guerrilla gardens" or tossing "seed bombs" into abandoned lots and properties where they don't have the legal right to garden.</p><p><span></span>"One thing that we've learned with our research is that there is room for compromise," Tallamy said. Native planting doesn't have to be all or none to make a difference. He gave the example of chickadee reproduction: If you have at least 70 percent native plant biomass in a given habitat, you can have sustainable chickadee reproduction. "That gives you 30 percent to plant perennials and exotics and other ornamental plants."</p><p>Tallamy's research into the relationship between native plants and insects has inspired gardeners to do more than just turn their yards into native oases. Many are now creating resources to empower others to do the same.</p><p>The National Wildlife Federation created a <a href="https://www.nwf.org/nativeplantfinder/" target="_blank">native plant finder web tool</a>, which allows users to plug in a ZIP code to find trees, shrubs, and plants native to their region. Following her horticultural revelation, Toni Genberg created <a href="http://choosenatives.org/" target="_blank">ChooseNatives.org</a>, a resource to help users find, purchase, and learn about native plants. Since switching to natives, Genberg herself has seen all sorts of wildlife return to a property that, before, was only a suburban simulacrum.</p><p>Matt Bright founded the nonprofit charity Earth Sangha with the goal of propagating and restoring local native plant communities in the DC area. "We've set records for total plants distributed from our wild plant nursery for four years running," he said. "And overall, the trend has been towards more demand from all corners, whether that's from park managers and ecologists, homeowners, or landscaping companies."</p>Biodiversity Among Buildings
<p>But shifting away from lawns is complicated by the fact that municipalities have long adopted rules called "weed ordinances," which require short ground cover for purely aesthetic reasons. This effectively mandates the planting and maintaining of lawns, as do many local zoning laws and HOA bylaws. And these rules aren't always taken lightly. In Michigan a few years ago, a woman <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/blogpost/post/julie-bass-may-face-jail-time-for-planting-vegetables/2011/07/08/gIQAZZOv3H_blog.html" target="_blank">faced jail time</a> for growing a vegetable garden in her front yard instead of lawn.</p><p>People don't want to be told that they can't have their lawns, but they also don't want to be told that they have to have a lawn.</p><p>The elephant in the room, of course, is property rights. Limits and requirements can inspire backlash. As Genberg points out, "Americans don't want to be told what to do, especially when it comes to their properties."</p><p>That's why Tallamy has focused on talking to the public instead of advancing top-down regulation. Laws, especially bans, need public support to pass. To even think about regulating lawns you first need to change the culture around them. As people like Toni Genberg and Matt Bright show, Tallamy's message is resonating.</p><p>"What you do on your property affects everybody," Tallamy said. Nonnative or ornamental plants may not look like pollutants, but from an ecological standpoint, they are. Tallamy's research bears this out: A new paper from his team shows just how effective nonnative plants are at destroying local habitats.</p><p>"We compared caterpillar communities in hedgerows that were invaded with non-natives versus hedgerows that were mostly native," he explained. "There's a 96% reduction in caterpillar biomass when they're nonnative, so if you're a bird and you're trying to rear your young, you just lost 96% of your food."</p><p>But there's a flip side, he said. If you take the invasive species out and put the native plants in, you've just created 96 percent more food.</p><p>And this isn't some gardening trend reserved for America's suburbs and conservation lands. In Manhattan, the most densely populated urban center in the country, officials converted an abandoned railway line into a public park called the High Line, with a policy of planting at least 50 percent native species.</p><p>"There are monarch butterflies there, there are all kinds of native bees, which really surprised me," Tallamy said. "If you can do that in Manhattan, you can do it anywhere."</p>From Your Site Articles
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A bumblebee on a Dusky Cranesbill geranium plant on May 14, 2018 in London, England. Victoria Jones - WPA Pool / Getty Images
Rampant pesticide use and habitat loss has already crippled bumblebee populations. New research now shows that warming temperatures around the world will further push bumblebees to the brink of extinction, as The New York Times reported.
<p>The loss of bumblebees spells trouble for plant <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/biodiversity" target="_self">biodiversity</a> since they are some of the most important <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/pollinators" target="_self">pollinators</a> in the world. Bumblebees pollinate and fertilize a wide array of plants and crops, including tomatoes, blueberries and squash. However, if you are in North America, you are nearly 50 percent less likely to see a bumblebee in any given area than you were prior to 1974, according to the new research, as <a href="https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/2020/02/bumblebees-going-extinct-climate-change-pesticides/#close" target="_blank">National Geographic</a> reported.</p><p>The new research, published in the journal <a href="https://science.sciencemag.org/content/367/6478/685" target="_blank">Science</a>, employed a massive dataset and a complex modeling system to look at bee populations and to find the reason for their decline. The researchers found that bee populations have experienced the largest decline in places that have warmed at a faster rate than the rest of the planet.</p>
<p>Some bumblebee species have disappeared from areas where they once flourished. For example, the rusty-patched bumblebee once thrived in Ontario, but now it is no longer found in Canada. In the U.S., it is <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/endangered-species" target="_self">endangered</a>, as <a href="https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/2020/02/bumblebees-going-extinct-climate-change-pesticides/#close" target="_blank">National Geographic</a> reported.</p><p>"The things [we] grew up with as kids are fading away very fast," said Dr. Jeremy Kerr, senior author of the study and a biology professor at the University of Ottawa, as <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/02/06/us/bumble-bee-climate-change-extinction-study-scn/index.html" target="_blank">CNN</a> reported.</p><p>"It's not just that we're looking at what our kids will experience; it's that we are looking back not even a full generation, just to when we were kids, and saying, 'Could we take our children to places we loved and find what we found?' What our study says is that that answer is no across entire continents."</p><p>The scientists at the University of Ottawa looked at 66 different bumblebee species across two continents. They found that bumblebee populations have declined by 46 percent in North America and by 17 percent in Europe compared to the period from 1901 to 1974, according to the <a href="https://science.sciencemag.org/content/367/6478/685" target="_blank">study</a>.</p>
<p>"The scale of this decline is really worrying," said Peter Soroye, a doctoral student in biology at the University of Ottawa and lead author of the study, to <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/02/06/climate/bumblebees-extreme-heat-weather.html" target="_blank">The New York Times</a>. "This group of organisms is such a critical pollinator in wild landscapes and agricultural regions."</p><p>To build their model, the researchers relied on a database of roughly 550,000 bee records over a century. The researchers looked at two time periods: 1901 to 1974 and 2000 to 2015. Then they examined if temperatures and precipitation exceeded the bumblebees' tolerance level, as <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/02/06/us/bumble-bee-climate-change-extinction-study-scn/index.html" target="_blank">CNN</a> reported.</p><p>Bumblebees, which prefer cooler, slightly wet temperatures, perished in areas that had heat waves, prolonged dryness, or frequently <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/extreme-weather" target="_self">extreme weather</a>. That pattern, which is commensurate with the <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/climate-crisis" target="_self">climate crisis</a>, threatens bumblebees with extinction and from the possibility of establishing colonies or creating new species, according to <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/02/06/us/bumble-bee-climate-change-extinction-study-scn/index.html" target="_blank">CNN</a>.</p>
<p>Kerr said that there are several mechanisms at play. Bees can simply overheat. Or, as plants wither, the bees starve. Additionally, early springs and re-freezings threaten queens, which spend the winter in forest leaf litter, as <a href="https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/2020/02/bumblebees-going-extinct-climate-change-pesticides/#close" target="_blank">National Geographic</a> reported.</p><p>The loss of bees may have a devastating effect on plants that rely on them and animals that rely on those plants.</p><p>"As these plants are then used by myriad other organisms, the decline of bumblebees can have cascading ecological [effects] that may collectively cause biodiversity loss," said <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Matthew_Austin3" target="_blank">Matthew Austin</a>, a Ph.D. student and researcher at the University of Missouri in St. Louis who wasn't involved in the paper, to <a href="https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/2020/02/bumblebees-going-extinct-climate-change-pesticides/#close" target="_blank">National Geographic</a>.</p><p>"Our results show that we face a future with many less bumble bees and much less diversity, both in the outdoors and on our plates," said Soroye in a University of Ottawa statement.</p>
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The endangered yellow-faced bumble bee consistently chose the large-leaved lupine (Lupinus polyphyllus), seen above, even when others were available. vil.sandi / Flickr / CC BY-ND 2.0
In an effort to aid North American bumblebee conservation, a group of California researchers has identified which flowers certain bee species prefer.
<p>There are nearly 20,000 known bee species in the world, 4,000 of which are native to the U.S., according to the <a href="https://www.usgs.gov/faqs/why-are-bees-important?qt-news_science_products=0#qt-news_science_products" target="_blank">U.S. Geological Society</a>. Bees <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/pollinators" rel="noopener noreferrer">pollinate</a> roughly three-quarters of all fruits, nuts and <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/vegetables" rel="noopener noreferrer">vegetables</a> grown across the country and one of every four bites of food can be credited to bee pollination. But bees are in major decline as nearly 40 percent of honey bees have declined in the last year, <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/US/40-decline-honey-bee-population-winter-unsustainable-experts/story?id=64191609" target="_blank">according to ABC News</a>. Populations have dropped for a number of reasons, including parasites, <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/pesticides" rel="noopener noreferrer">pesticides</a> and a lack of flowers on the landscape — all factors that highlight a need for understanding habitat needed to sustain and recover populations. </p>
<p>Working with the <a href="https://www.entsoc.org/" target="_blank">Entomological Society of America</a>, scientists set out to determine which flowers bumble bees prefer in an effort to aid land managers seeking to restore critical habitat.</p><p>"It's important to consider the availability of plants when determining what's selected for by bees," Jerry Cole, study author and biologist with the <a href="https://www.birdpop.org/" target="_blank">Institute for Bird Populations</a> (IBP), <a href="https://eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2020-01/esoa-nsi012220.php" target="_blank">said</a>. "Often studies will use the proportion of captures on a plant species alone to determine which plants are most important to bees. Without comparison to how available those plants are, you might think a plant is preferentially selected by bees, when it is simply very abundant."</p>
<blockquote class="instagram-media" data-instgrm-permalink="https://www.instagram.com/p/B739KpQgS6W/?utm_source=ig_embed&utm_campaign=loading" data-instgrm-version="12" style=" background:#FFF; border:0; border-radius:3px; box-shadow:0 0 1px 0 rgba(0,0,0,0.5),0 1px 10px 0 rgba(0,0,0,0.15); margin: 1px; max-width:540px; min-width:326px; padding:0; width:99.375%; width:-webkit-calc(100% - 2px); width:calc(100% - 2px);"><div style="padding:16px;"> <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/B739KpQgS6W/?utm_source=ig_embed&utm_campaign=loading" style=" background:#FFFFFF; line-height:0; padding:0 0; text-align:center; text-decoration:none; width:100%;" target="_blank"> <div style=" display: flex; flex-direction: row; align-items: center;"> <div style="background-color: #F4F4F4; border-radius: 50%; flex-grow: 0; height: 40px; margin-right: 14px; width: 40px;"></div> <div style="display: flex; flex-direction: column; flex-grow: 1; justify-content: center;"> <div style=" background-color: #F4F4F4; 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font-family:Arial,sans-serif; font-size:14px; font-style:normal; font-weight:550; line-height:18px;"> View this post on Instagram</div></div><div style="padding: 12.5% 0;"></div> <div style="display: flex; flex-direction: row; margin-bottom: 14px; align-items: center;"><div> <div style="background-color: #F4F4F4; border-radius: 50%; height: 12.5px; width: 12.5px; transform: translateX(0px) translateY(7px);"></div> <div style="background-color: #F4F4F4; height: 12.5px; transform: rotate(-45deg) translateX(3px) translateY(1px); width: 12.5px; flex-grow: 0; margin-right: 14px; margin-left: 2px;"></div> <div style="background-color: #F4F4F4; border-radius: 50%; height: 12.5px; width: 12.5px; transform: translateX(9px) translateY(-18px);"></div></div><div style="margin-left: 8px;"> <div style=" background-color: #F4F4F4; border-radius: 50%; flex-grow: 0; height: 20px; width: 20px;"></div> <div style=" width: 0; height: 0; border-top: 2px solid transparent; border-left: 6px solid #f4f4f4; border-bottom: 2px solid transparent; transform: translateX(16px) translateY(-4px) rotate(30deg)"></div></div><div style="margin-left: auto;"> <div style=" width: 0px; border-top: 8px solid #F4F4F4; border-right: 8px solid transparent; transform: translateY(16px);"></div> <div style=" background-color: #F4F4F4; flex-grow: 0; height: 12px; width: 16px; transform: translateY(-4px);"></div> <div style=" width: 0; height: 0; border-top: 8px solid #F4F4F4; border-left: 8px solid transparent; transform: translateY(-4px) translateX(8px);"></div></div></div> <div style="display: flex; flex-direction: column; flex-grow: 1; justify-content: center; margin-bottom: 24px;"> <div style=" background-color: #F4F4F4; border-radius: 4px; flex-grow: 0; height: 14px; margin-bottom: 6px; width: 224px;"></div> <div style=" background-color: #F4F4F4; border-radius: 4px; flex-grow: 0; height: 14px; width: 144px;"></div></div></a><p style=" color:#c9c8cd; font-family:Arial,sans-serif; font-size:14px; line-height:17px; margin-bottom:0; margin-top:8px; overflow:hidden; padding:8px 0 7px; text-align:center; text-overflow:ellipsis; white-space:nowrap;"><a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/B739KpQgS6W/?utm_source=ig_embed&utm_campaign=loading" style=" color:#c9c8cd; font-family:Arial,sans-serif; font-size:14px; font-style:normal; font-weight:normal; line-height:17px; text-decoration:none;" target="_blank">A post shared by Institute for Bird Populations (@instbirdpop)</a> on <time style=" font-family:Arial,sans-serif; font-size:14px; line-height:17px;" datetime="2020-01-28T19:01:15+00:00">Jan 28, 2020 at 11:01am PST</time></p></div></blockquote> <script async src="//www.instagram.com/embed.js"></script><p>To come to their conclusions, researchers captured more than a dozen different species of bumblebees on more than 100 different species of flowers in the Sierra Nevada region of California. Researchers recorded what species of flower each bee was captured on and then estimated the number of plants found in each plot. The <a href="https://academic.oup.com/ee/advance-article/doi/10.1093/ee/nvz159/5714030" target="_blank">findings</a> suggest that different bumblebee species select specific flowers even when foraging across the same landscape.<br></p>
<p>"We discovered plants that were big winners for all bumble bee species but, just as importantly, plant species that were very important for only a single bumble bee species," said Helen Loffland, a meadow species specialist with the Institute for Bird Populations. "This study allowed us to provide a concise, scientifically based list of important plant species to use in habitat restoration that will meet the needs of multiple bumble bee species and provide blooms across the entire annual lifecycle."</p><p>The yellow-faced bumble bee (<em>Bombus vosnesenskii</em>) was most abundantly observed. The endangered <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/insects" rel="noopener noreferrer">insects</a> preferred large-leaved lupine (<em>Lupinus polyphyllus</em>) and consistently chose the flowering plant even when others were available. Three of five bumblebee species were found to prefer <em>A. urticifolia</em>, a flowering plant in the mint family.</p><p>Some of other favorites? The fuzzy buzzing insects also preferred Oregon checker-mallow (<em>Sidalcea oregana</em>), Alpine mountainbalm (<em>Monardella odoratissima), </em>tall fringed bluebells (<em>Mertensia ciliate</em>) and cobwebby hedge nettle (<em>Stachys albens</em>). </p>
<p>It is important to note that bees likely don't have natural preferences but instead choose flowers based on quality or quantity of nectar or pollen. People should interpret the results with caution because the researchers did not conclude whether plants were being used for pollen or nectar sources, <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/01/28/us/best-flowers-for-bees-conservation-study-scn/index.html" target="_blank">CNN notes</a>. </p><p>The U.S. Forest Service says that it is using the study results to identify areas where restoration efforts may make more ample bee habitat. </p><p>"This sort of knowledge can really increase the effectiveness of restoration for bumblebees in a way that is relatively easy and cost-effective to implement," said Loffland, adding that the findings can be helpful to landowners who are restoring or managing areas that are habitat for native bees.</p>
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Insects play a vital role in ecosystems and humans are particularly dependent on them for food. Dmitry Grigoriev / Unsplash
By Ajit Niranjan
Seven 'no-regret' actions could rescue insects on the road to extinction, a new roadmap for conservation says, helping ecosystems even where a lack of research means scientists cannot prove benefits to individual species.
<p><a href="https://www.dw.com/en/why-biodiversity-loss-hurts-humans-as-much-as-climate-change/a-48579014" target="_blank">Earth's biodiversity is declining at unprecedented rates</a> but population data on insects — which are small, diverse and abundant — is patchy.</p><p>Instead of waiting to fill knowledge gaps, 75 experts writing in the journal <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41559-019-1079-8" target="_blank">Nature Ecology and Evolution</a> are calling for immediate actions that also improve ecosystems and wider society. Short-term measures such as phasing out <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/pesticides">pesticides</a> and diversifying farmland could set struggling insect species on a path to recovery while better data is collected.</p><p>"We reap what we sow," said Jeff Harvey, ecologist at the Netherlands Institute of Ecology and lead author of the roadmap. "It's a no-brainer that decline of insects will affect other species in the food chain … We can't just put little bandages on this."</p>
<h3>'Insectageddon'</h3><p>Last year, a global review published in the journal Biological Conservation spawned headlines heralding an "<a href="https://www.dw.com/en/how-to-stop-an-insect-apocalypse/a-47723711" target="_blank">insect apocalypse</a>," "Armageddon" and "collapse of nature" when it found 40% of insect species would face the threat of extinction within decades.</p><p>Some experts have since criticized the paper for using biased search terms and misapplying extinction risk. It also relied on studies mainly from Europe and North America.</p><p>"Very little data is available for most species in most countries, so it's simply untrue to claim that there is scientific consensus that insects are in global decline," said Manu Saunders, an ecologist at the University of New England, in an email. "This is a very different issue to insects being under real threat from various drivers, particularly land clearing, pesticides, <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/climate-change">climate change</a>, etc."</p><p>IPBES, the UN-convened panel of ecology experts, tentatively put the figure of threatened insect species at 10% last year, in the most comprehensive study of life on Earth ever undertaken.</p><p>"I think globally we have quite a decline in species," said Josef Settele, an ecologist at Germany's Helmholtz-Center for Environmental Research and co-chair of the IPBES report. "40% might be too high, and 10% in our global assessment is too low, but this is the range."</p><p>Even as ecologists disagree on broad population trends, they are united on three points: the importance of insects to people; the rising threats they face; and the lack of action to preserve them.</p><p>Insects play a vital role in ecosystems and humans are particularly dependent on them for food. Where fewer earthworms replenish soil, and dwindling bee and butterfly populations struggle to pollinate crops, food supplies could drop catastrophically. The IPBES report estimated that up to $577 billion (€522 billion) in annual crop output is at risk as a result of <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/learningpack-foodwaste/a-51732090" target="_blank">pollinator loss</a> alone.</p>
<h3>Global Losses</h3><p>In Australia, where Saunders works, raging wildfires exacerbated by climate change have <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/australias-koalas-threatened-by-deforestation-and-bushfires/a-50644206" target="_blank">lain waste to wildlife</a>.</p><p>Sweeping through an area larger than Portugal, the fires have killed an estimated one billion animals in a matter of months, with some survivors seeking refuge in waterways and even wombat burrows to escape the heat. A preliminary government analysis last week found that fires have burned more than half the habitat of 114 threatened species.</p><p>Among them is the critically endangered Banksia montana mealybug, an insect thought to live only on a single type of shrub that is vulnerable to disease, fire and climate change. It is one of 4 insect species in a 327-strong list of vulnerable creatures that have seen at least 10% of their known habitat burned by bushfires. More are thought to have perished unseen.<br></p><p>"The main problem is that we have very little data on the insect species that were in these burned locations before the fire, so we have no way of knowing how many have been affected and in what locations," said Saunders.</p><p>The prospect of <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/wildfires-climate-change-and-deforestation-increase-the-global-risk/a-51928388" target="_blank">more intense and frequent fires</a> in Australia — and the difficulties forests may face in growing back — has raised fears about long-term insect populations.</p>
<h3>Agricultural Pressure</h3><p>In Germany, where <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/wwf-highlights-drastic-drop-in-german-insect-population/a-48624626" target="_blank">insect loss</a> is better documented, the speed and scale of decline has shocked scientists.</p><p>A landmark study published in the journal PLOS One in 2017 found a 76% decline in flying insects in nature reserves over nearly three decades. The population loss was not limited to well-studied creatures, such as bees and butterflies, but flying insects as a whole, and was documented in areas supposedly-safe from humans.</p><p>The researchers suggested suggest agriculture and pesticides had aggravated the decline, noting that almost all the reserves were surrounded by farmland.</p><p>Last September, the German government announced a €100 million-a-year action plan that includes protecting habitats, phasing out the <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/german-farmers-overregulation-is-the-last-thing-we-need/a-51418355" target="_blank">controversial herbicide glyphosate</a> and reducing light pollution in an effort to counter insect loss. A quarter of the funding will go to research.</p><p>The scientists who wrote the conservation roadmap hold up Germany as a role model for other countries to emulate. But the focus on insect protection without major agricultural reform has left some uncertain.</p><p><a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/industrial-agriculture">Industrial agriculture</a>, pesticides and monocropping pose major threats to insects — and that, in turn, endangers harvests and food supplies, according to an "insect atlas" published in January by the Heinrich-Böll Foundation, Friends of the Earth Germany (BUND) and Le Monde Diplomatique.</p><p>Germany is strong on insect protection but fails to tackle the role of farming, said Christine Chemnitz, agriculture policy expert at the Heinrich-Böll Foundation and project lead of the insect atlas. "We totally support [the protection programme] but we view it critically, because agricultural policy must urgently change too."</p>
<p><em>Reposted with permission from <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/insect-apocalypse-dying-ecosystem-species-loss-a-52160360/a-52160360" target="_blank">DW</a></em><em>.</em></p>From Your Site Articles
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Take Your Climate Activism to the Next Level With January’s New Environmental Books
11 January
Popular
Pixabay
By John R. Platt
The New Year got off to a rocky start, with deadly fires throughout Australia and international political tensions rising to a frightening level.
<p>What's the best way to get past the dread and return to action? One option is to turn your attention toward new and proven ideas for saving what matters most.</p><p>Below you'll find the eight most interesting, inspiring and energizing new books coming out in January 2020. Half of them cover the climate crisis in one way or another, while the rest take on issues related to animals and wildlife. Some are for professional conservationists, while others are for anyone interested in the issues that define our modern world. All are worth your time.</p>
The Citizen’s Guide to Climate Success by Mark Jaccard
<p>Ever feel paralyzed by the scope and threat of climate change? You're not alone, but this new book aims to turn that around and get people moving. Part of it discusses the best individual actions we can all take, while the rest focuses on identifying the most important societal and political actions to prioritize. Along the way the book busts some myths perpetuated by the climate-denier industry and even debunks a few misconceptions held by well-meaning environmentalists. Jaccard can be a bit <em>too</em> provocative at times, but he backs his conclusions up with the latest science and delivers a book worth reading and discussing — not to mention acting upon. (<em>Guide</em> is out in paperback this month, with a <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/citizens-guide-to-climate-success/49D99FBCBD6FCACD5F3D58A7ED80882D" target="_blank">free open-access PDF available in February</a>.)</p>Climate Change From the Streets by Michael Méndez
<p>Méndez argues that the climate crisis is also a crisis for public health, especially in lower-income communities of color, and that both problems can only be solved by addressing issues of environmental justice. His book, subtitled "How Conflict and Collaboration Strengthen the Environmental Justice Movement," taps into Méndez's own research into California communities and grassroots activism to show how the problems that plague us can also bring us together — but only if we invite everyone to the table.</p>Under the Influence: Putting Peer Pressure to Work by Robert H. Frank
<p>This broadly themed book addresses the complexities of our <em>social</em> environments — for example, how group behavior gives rise to bullying — but a lot of what it discusses applies to worldwide environmental issues, too. The result is a combination of psychology and economics that illustrates how the human "herd instinct" can be put to good use to solve the climate crisis and other problems.</p>It’s Earth Day, Cookie Monster! by Mary Lindeen
<p>Every day is Earth Day, just as every day is another opportunity to eat a cookie — or help teach kids to take care of the planet. This is the sixth book in the deliciously fun "Go Green with Sesame Street" series, which just goes to show you that "C is for Conservation."</p>Cat Tale: The Wild, Weird Battle to Save the Florida Panther by Craig Pittman
<p>Pittman has done more than probably any other newspaper journalist to document the twists and turns of efforts to conserve and protect the Florida panther — not to mention the failures we've had along the way. Now he revisits the history of these critically endangered big cats and the people who helped them in this remarkable work of longform reporting.</p>And Here We Are: Stories From the Sixth Extinction by Bil Zelman
<p>A stunningly beautiful photo book — shot like a moody black-and-white movie — showcasing endangered species and the fragile, human-influenced environments in which they precariously hang on. Biologist E.O. Wilson (<em>Half-Earth</em>) provides the foreword.</p>The Nib: Animals
<p>Here's something different: a thick, square-bound magazine from the folks behind <em>The Nib</em>, the web's best political cartooning site (which often covers environmental topics). This collection includes short stories, art and gags by more than three dozen writers and cartoonists, covering topics like extinction, wildlife trafficking, livestock and our relationships with our pets. The result is a heady mix of politics, journalism, philosophy and eye-opening humor.</p>The Pollinator Victory Garden by Kim Eierman
<p>Victory gardens helped feed communities and troops during the first and second world wars. This book aims to translate that success to a similar effort: establishing year-round pollinator-friendly gardens in our backyards to help boost populations of bees, birds, bats, butterflies and other species — and in the process help "win the war against pollinator decline." It's not just for backyards, though; Eierman also discusses lawn alternatives (get rid of that grass!) and how to apply the same ideas to other areas throughout our developed communities. The book includes a resource list to help readers apply its recommendations to the needs of plants and wildlife in various parts of the country.</p><p>Well, that's it for this month. Stay tuned for a fresh batch of books on February's list in a few short weeks. Until then you can find dozens of additional eco-books in the <a href="https://therevelator.org/tag/revelator-reads/" target="_blank">"Revelator Reads" archive</a>.</p>
<p> <em>Reposted with permission from <a href="https://therevelator.org/environmental-books-january-2020/" target="_blank">The Revelator</a>. </em><em></em></p>
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