Diesel pollution snuffs out floral odors, interfering with honeybees' ability to find and pollinate flowers, new research suggests.
Honeybees use both visual and olfactory cues to recognize flowers that produce nectar in return for insect pollination. Not all flowers produce nectar, and bees avoid those that don't by learning to recognize the odors of nectar-bearing flowers.
But these floral odors— which consist of reactive chemicals called volatiles — react with other substances in the atmosphere; in the presence of certain pollutants, these scents can chemically transform into undetectable forms, researchers from the University of Southampton report today (Oct. 3) in the journal Scientific Reports.
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