Date: March 6, 2019
Source: University of Michigan
Wild bees
are indispensable pollinators, supporting both agricultural productivity and
the diversity of flowering plants worldwide.
But wild
bees are experiencing widespread declines resulting from multiple interacting
factors. A new University of Michigan-led study suggests that the effects of
one of those factors -- urbanization -- may have been underestimated.
The
study, led by a group of current and former U-M students and conducted at sites
across southeast Michigan, looks at one aspect of this topic they say has
received scant attention from bee researchers: the sex ratio of wild bees and
how it changes across a rural-to-urban land-use gradient.
The team
found that the sex ratio of wild bees became more male-dominated as
urbanization increased, mainly driven by a decline in medium- and large-bodied
ground-nesting female bees. The study, published March 6 in the
journal Scientific Reports, is believed to be the first investigation of
observed sex ratio in a complete wild bee community along a rural-to-urban
gradient.
"These
findings have potential implications on bee population health and pollination
services, since male and female bees often have different pollination
behaviors," said Paul Glaum, one of the study's first authors and a
postdoctoral researcher in U-M's Department of Ecology and Evolutionary
Biology.
No comments:
Post a Comment
You only need to enter your comment once! Comments will appear once they have been moderated. This is so as to stop the would-be comedian who has been spamming the comments here with inane and often offensive remarks. You know who you are!