Bumblebees are vanishing in Midwest America
According to The Weather Channel based on news by Associated Press It's not just honey bees that are in trouble. The fuzzy American bumblebee seems to be disappearing in the Midwest.
Two new studies in Thursday's journal Science conclude that wild bees, like the American bumblebee, are increasingly important in pollinating flowers and crops that provide us with food. And, at least in the Midwest, they seem to be dwindling in an alarming manner, possibly from disease and parasites.
Wild bees are difficult to track so scientists have had a hard time knowing what's happening to them. But because of one man in a small town in Illinois in the 1890s, researchers now have a better clue. Naturalist Charles Robertson went out daily in a horse-drawn buggy and meticulously collected and categorized insects in Carlinville in southern Illinois.
More than a century later, Laura Burkle of Montana State University went back to see what changed. Burkle and her colleagues reported that they could only find half the species of wild bees that Robertson found – 54 of 109 types. And what's most noticeable is the near absence of one particular species, the yellow-and-black American bumblebee. That fits with a study that University of Illinois entomologist Sydney Cameron did two years ago when she found a dramatic reduction in the number and range of the American bumblebee.
"People call them the big fuzzies," Cameron said. "They're phenomenal animals. They can fly in the snow."
A separate Science study by a European team showed that wild bees in general have a larger role in pollinating plants than the honey bees that are trucked in to do the job professionally.
Related to Nature:
- Iran faces fresh water shortage: Warns NASA
- Videos: Meteorite explosion stirs panic in Russia, Injures hundreds
- Incredible tornado video: Up-close
- Japan's "shaky" future: A reality every Japanese should recognize
- Watch WHERE you drink! and WHERE you leave your baby! (Video)
- 30 meters from volcanic lava lake: Incredible video footage
- Was Iran quake man-made?
- Protests in Iran to save Iran's Lake Oroomieh
- Rare save of stranded dolphins caught on camera
- Scary coaster slide down from Alpine summit in Austria
- Learn persistence from this goose!
- Wild antelope dives into a mountain bike rider
- Sudden deadly storm in Pukkelpop concert
- Iran reports hottest temperature on the Planet: 70 Celsius
- Unexpected glacier carving in Alaska
