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All Articles Tagged As: pollinators
Honeybee populations have been in serious decline for years, and Purdue University scientists may have identified one of the factors that cause bee deaths around agricultural fields.
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 | Princeton University researchers found that invasive species can become essential to the very ecosystems threatened by their presence, taking on important biological roles -- such as flower pollination -- once held by the species the interlopers helped eliminate. As a result, campaigns to curb invasive animal populations should include efforts to understand the role of the invasive species in question and, if necessary, reintroduce missing native animals. ...> Full Article |
 | In plants that rely on animals for pollination, the number of seeds they produce is influenced by pollinator visits and the successful deposition of pollen. But what if a plant happens to grow in a population that is small or has very few pollinators visiting its flowers? Will all the effort put into flowering and attracting pollinators have gone to waste? Some plants have found a way to ensure their future reproductive fitness. ...> Full Article |
Mathematicians at MIT have found that efficient feeding depends on how sugary a flower's nectar is, and whether an animal dips or sucks the nectar out. The researchers found that animals such as bees, which probe with their tongues, are "viscous dippers," and are most efficient when feeding on more sugary, or viscous, nectar. Suction feeders, such as birds and butterflies that draw nectar up through tubes, do their best when sucking up thinner, less sugary nectar.
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For the conservation of species, hostile territory might sometimes have its advantages. That's according to a study of pollen flow among trees found only in remnant patches of native Chilean forest. The data show that the pollinators those rare trees rely on can be waylaid by the abundance of resources found in agricultural lands. As a result, trees growing in native forest patches are more likely to mate successfully when separated by resource-poor pine plantations than by those more attractive farmlands.
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 | Scientists from the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences and the University of Lund have discovered that the community composition of bumble bee species and their relative abundances have changed drastically over the last 70 years in Sweden. Over the same period, the average seed yield of red clover has declined and variation in yield has doubled, suggesting that the current dependence on few species for pollination of red clover has been detrimental especially to stability in seed yield. ...> Full Article |
A 10-month study of healthy honey bees by University of California, San Francisco scientists has identified four new viruses that infect bees, while revealing that each of the viruses or bacteria previously linked to colony collapse is present in healthy hives as well.
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Total losses from managed honey bee colonies nationwide were 30 percent from all causes for the 2010/2011 winter, according to the annual survey conducted by the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the Apiary Inspectors of America (AIA). This is roughly similar to total losses reported in similar surveys done in the four previous years: 34 percent for the 2009/2010 winter, 29 percent for 2008/2009; 36 percent for 2007/2008, and 32 percent for 2006/2007.
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 | The value of pollination services in Europe is worth about €22 ($31) billion each year and Europe's pollinators are in serious decline. The STEP project is comprised of a leading team of more than 50 researchers who are working together to conserve Europe's pollinators. ...> Full Article |
A nationwide network to monitor and maintain honeybee health is the aim of the Bee Informed Partnership, a five-year, $5 million program funded by the US Department of Agriculture's National Institute of Food and Agriculture and led by Penn State.
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The application of a naturally occurring pheromone to honey bee test colonies increases colony growth resulting in stronger hives overall, according to a new study conducted by scientists at Oregon State University and Texas A&M University.
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 | The first in-depth national study of wild bees in the US has uncovered major losses in the relative abundance of several bumble bee species and declines in their geographic range since record-keeping began in the late 1800s. ...> Full Article |
Having identified a tomato pollen gene associated with blocking self-pollination in petunias and cross-species fertilization in tomatoes, researchers at the University of California, Davis, conclude that tomato plants use similar biochemical mechanisms to guard against inbreeding and cross-species hybridization.
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Penn State researchers have found that native pollinators, like wild bees and wasps, are infected by the same viral diseases as honey bees and that these viruses are transmitted via pollen.
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 | Researchers at Newcastle University have shown for the first time that chemical seratonin enables the honeybee to learn to avoid nectar containing toxins. ...> Full Article |
 | Researchers may have a greater understanding of the mysterious colony collapse disorder. ...> Full Article |
 | Scientists from the Max Planck Institute for Chemical Ecology in Jena, Germany, have solved a case of fraud that has been pending for 40 million years. Arum palaestinum, called the Solomon's lily, attracts vinegar flies as pollinators by emitting odor molecules that resemble those produced during alcoholic fermentation of rotting fruit initiated by yeast. The plant accomplishes the illusion of yeast by producing specific chemicals that create the impression of fermentation in the fly brain. ...> Full Article |
 | Widespread reports of a decline in the population of bees and other flower-visiting animals have aroused fear and speculation that pollination is also likely on the decline. A recent University of Toronto study provides the first long-term evidence of a downward trend in pollination, while also pointing to climate change as a possible contributor. ...> Full Article |
Beautiful wildflowers might someday be planted in "bee pastures," floral havens created as an efficient, practical, environmentally friendly, and economically sound way to produce successive generations of healthy young bees. The pesticide-free pastures could be simple to establish, and -- at perhaps only a half-acre each -- easy to tend, according to US Department of Agriculture entomologist James H. Cane.
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Could a "hot" flower attract pollinators by serving as a reward in a plant-pollinator mutualism? Many flowering plants produce nectar and pollen as rewards in exchange for pollination services by insects and other animals. Interestingly, however, a few plants have flowers that also produce heat metabolically -- so what is the adaptive function of this flower heating?
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 | Organic farms may be seen as wildlife friendly, but the benefits to birds, bees and butterflies don't compensate for the lower yields produced, according to new research from the University of Leeds. ...> Full Article |
 | Losses of managed honey bee colonies nationwide totaled 33.8 percent from all causes from October 2009 to April 2010, according to a survey conducted by the Apiary Inspectors of America and the Agricultural Research Service. ...> Full Article |
 | The number of bee colonies in Central Europe has decreased over recent decades. In fact, the number of beekeepers has been declining in the whole of Europe since 1985. This is the result of a study that has now been published by the International Bee Research Association, which for the first time has provided an overview of the problem of bee colony decline at the European level. Until now there had only been the reports from individual countries available. ...> Full Article |
 | Plants attract insect pollinators to ensure reproduction. However, female moths are also threatening to the plant: attracted by the flower's scent, they lay eggs on the leaves, and voracious caterpillars hatch. Scientists from the Max Planck Institute for Chemical Ecology have now discovered how tobacco plants solve this dilemma. They found that herbivory changed the opening time of the flower buds from dusk to dawn, attracting day-active hummingbirds which are also able to transfer pollen. ...> Full Article |
 | Figs and the wasps that pollinate them present one of biologists' favorite examples of a beneficial relationship between two different species. In exchange for the pollination service provided by the wasp, the fig fruit provides room and board for the wasp's developing young. However, wasps do not always pollinate the fig. Fig trees "punish" these "cheaters" by dropping unpollinated fruit, killing the wasp's offspring inside, report researchers working at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute. ...> Full Article |
 | Ground-breaking discoveries by Michigan State University researchers could help protect honeybees from deadly parasites that have devastated commercial colonies. ...> Full Article |
The notion that a decline in pollinators may threaten the human food supply -- producing a situation that has been referred to as a "pollination crisis" -- can be considered a myth, at least where honeybees are concerned, say researchers report. First of all, most agricultural crop production does not depend on pollinators. On top of that, while honeybees may be dwindling in some parts of the world, the number of domesticated bees world-wide is actually on the rise, their new report shows.
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