- Author: Ben Faber
Put a bunch of natural historians together with their collections and images and what do you end up with - a collection of all the bee species held by some of the biggest entomology institutions around the United States:
https://library.big-bee.net/portal/index.php
The Bee Library is an online repository of bee image, trait, and specimen data. The portal has a worldwide scope and may include other taxa that are not bees but interact with bees (i.e., bee parasites). The contributors to this resource are varied and include the many taxonomists, data managers, and bee ecologists whose work it is to determine bee specimens and help us understand bee evolution and ecology. The Bee Library recommends citing the repository for a bee specimen, the specimen catalog number, and who determined the specimen in any publication that references data from this portal. Images are free for reuse, but please cite the institution that provided the image.
These data are currently growing due to the work of the Extending Anthophila Research Through Image and Trait Digitization National Science Foundation Project (Big-Bee). Big-Bee is a collaboration of 13 universities, research stations, natural history collections, and agencies who aim to share images, label, and functional trait (i.e., flight timing, host plant, body size) data for over 5000 bee species
- Author: Ben Faber
Microbes multiply in heat,
Changing nectar,
Upsetting bees
Bumblebees pollinate many of our favorite foods, but their own diet is being upset by climate change, according to a new UC Riverside study.
Bombus impatiens, aka the common eastern bumblebee, served as taste tester for this experiment.
There's a sweet spot where floral nectar that bees eat has just the right balance of microbes like bacteria and yeast in it. Hotter weather can upset the balance, endangering the bees' health and potentially, our own.
A new study in the journal Microbial Ecology examines the effects of these nectar composition changes on an American bumblebee. Without bumblebees, who perform a type of pollination that honeybees do not, it would be difficult to mass produce food crops like tomatoes, blueberries, peppers, or potatoes.
“Micro changes in floral nectar may alter the way bees forage and look for food, affecting their health and in turn, potentially affecting human health, by reducing the availability of fresh foods,” said UCR entomologist and study lead Kaleigh Russell.
Bumblebees do enjoy nectar with some microbes in it, but too much of a good thing can deter them, Russell said.
With even a small increase in temperature, microbes' metabolism speeds up, causing them to reproduce more and eat up a higher percentage of the sugars in the nectar. “Less sugar means the nectar could be less palatable for our pollinators,” Russell said.
To test the bumblebees' taste preferences, Russell made nectar in a laboratory. Some was sterile and some contained microbes, and she grew both at a lower and a higher temperature.
The lower temperature, 80.6 degrees Fahrenheit, represents the average springtime high for Riverside in 2017. The higher temperature, 89.6 F, corresponds with what the predicted average temperature will be at the end of the century due to climate change.
Nectar from wild mustard, abundant in Southern California, was collected for this experimental taste test.
A clear preference for some level of microbes was evident even when the nectar contained less sugar. However, the bees only went for this less sugary nectar containing a moderate amount of microbes at the cooler temperature. They did not prefer the nectar with too many microbes, as well as the nectar with no microbes at all.
It isn't yet clear why the bees have such specific preferences. Russell speculates that bacteria or yeast may help bees digest sugars in the nectar. Another theory is that the microbes produce secondary metabolites that aid in bee health.
What is clear is that it isn't likely that an increase in average temperatures will have a positive effect on bumblebees.
“We could see shifts in the locations of bee communities, since they leave when they can't find the food they like or need,” Russell said. “We might also see a decline in overall pollinator populations.”
For concerned readers with gardens, Russell recommends growing native plants that have not been treated with insecticide. “That's the best thing someone could do right now to help bumblebees,” she said.
- Author: Christina Herrick
This article is from Florida Grower News. Thanks for Jim Lloyd-butler for pointing it out.
FLG-Editorial@MeisterMediaww.com
A sister species of the Varroa destructor mite is developing the ability to parasitize European honeybees, threatening pollinators already hard pressed by pesticides, nutritional deficiencies, and disease, a Purdue University study says.
Researchers found that some populations of Varroa jacobsoni mites are shifting from feeding and reproducing on Asian honeybees, their preferred host, to European honeybees, the primary species used for crop pollination and honey production worldwide. To bee researchers, it's a grimly familiar story: V. destructor made the same host leap at least 60 years ago, spreading rapidly to become the most important global health threat to European honeybees.
While host-switching V. jacobsoni mites have not been found outside of Papua New Guinea, Purdue researchers Gladys Andino and Greg Hunt say vigilance is needed to protect European honeybees worldwide from further risk.
“This could represent a real threat,” said Andino, a bioinformatics specialist with Information Technology at Purdue. “If this mite gets out of control and spreads, we might have another situation like V. destructor.”
Varroa mites are obligate parasites, meaning their lifecycle is inextricably entwined with that of their bee hosts. The mites can do serious damage to their hosts' health due to their relatively large size – “think of a tick as big as your fist,” Hunt said. Mites latch on to bees and feed on their hemolymph, insects' rough equivalent to blood, leaving behind open wounds that are susceptible to infection. They can also transmit diseases such as deformed wing virus and have been linked to colony collapse disorder.
To gain insight into the biology behind V. jacobsoni‘s host switch, Andino and Hunt, professor of behavioral genetics and honeybee specialist, studied the differences in gene expression between V. jacobsoni mites that fed and reproduced on Asian honeybees and those that parasitized European honeybees. Knowing which host cues mites respond to and the genes involved could lead to potential control strategies, the researchers said.
“If we can understand the mechanism, we might be able to disrupt, block, or manipulate that,” Andino said. “But first we have to understand what is happening and which genes are involved in allowing the mites to shift to a new host.”
Andino and Hunt said the mites' leap to European honeybees likely occurred within the last decade. Previously, V. jacobsoni mites were occasionally found on European honeybees but seemed unable to produce healthy offspring, limiting their destructive capacity.
Catching the host transition in its early stages will allow researchers to continue to investigate the complex genetic details behind the shift and monitor infected European honeybees, Hunt said.
“This happened once with one species of mite, and it looks like it's happening again. Maybe if we catch this as it's beginning, we'll be able to figure out why it's happening or, down the road, stop it.”
The paper was recently published in BMC Genomics.
Funding for the study and an ongoing genome-sequencing project was provided USDA's-Agricultural Research Service and the USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture.
This article is from Florida Grower News