Hollis Woodard: Creating a national native bee monitoring network
This week on the podcast, I talk with Dr. Hollis Woodard, assistant professor in the Department of Entomology at the University of California, Riverside. In January, Hollis announced that she and eleven of her fellow bee experts are going to be creating a native bee monitoring network here in the U.S. So she and I converse about the current plans for getting that network up and running.
We also talk about an issue that everyone who is involved with ecology and conservation should be thinking about: taxonomic bottleneck.
Here is our conversation. Enjoy!
The Bee Report Podcast is available on all major podcasting platforms such as Apple and Spotify. Give it a listen and let me know what you think!
Do you have tips, comments, questions or ideas for collaboration? Please send them to tbr@bymattkelly.com.
Conservation
Wheen Bee Foundation receives $15,000 grant to protect green carpenter bee
(Wheen Bee Foundation) ANZ Seeds of Renewal, a grant program that helps build sustainable rural communities in Australia, recently presented a $15,000 check to the Foundation. The funds will help save the endangered green carpenter bee population on Kangaroo Island.
How quickly do flower strips in cities help the local bees?
(ScienceDaily/Pensoft Publishers) Many cities are introducing green areas to protect their fauna. Among such measures are flower strips, which provide support to flower-visiting insects. According to the first quantitative assessment of the speed and distance over which urban flower strips attract wild bees, scientists from the University of Munich found that one-year-old flower strips attracted a third of the 232 species recorded from Munich since 1997.
Federally protected lands reduce habitat loss and protect endangered species
(Tufts University) Using more than 30 years of earth satellite images, scientists at Tufts University and Defenders of Wildlife have discovered that habitat loss for imperiled vertebrate species in the U.S. during that period was more than twice as great on non-protected private lands than on federally protected lands.
Economics
Coronavirus stings world's top honey makers with China beekeepers locked down
(Reuters) Beekeepers in China, the world’s top honey producer, are bracing for a bleak start to the key spring pollinating season as travel curbs aimed at containing a coronavirus outbreak keep them at home while their bees go without food for weeks.
'Self-fertilizing' almonds still do better with bee pollination
(University of Hawai'i) Researchers examined the true "independence" of a new self-fertilizing almond variety called 'Independence'. They found that this variety still performed better when bees were assisting in pollination. "This article highlights the danger of misinformation – the variety is marketed as 'self-fertilizing', but growers don’t know they will get less yield without bees."
Policy/Law
Lawsuit attacks Trump administration failure to protect hundreds of species from extinction
(Center for Biological Diversity) The Center for Biological Diversity has sued the Trump administration for failing to decide whether 241 plants and animals across the country should be protected under the Endangered Species Act. Among the species covered by the lawsuit is the western bumble bee, whose population has declined 84 percent over the past two decades.
Science
A new method for surveying bumble bees alongside Minnesota roadways
(Crossroads) Entomologists working in collaboration with the Minnesota Department of Transportation have produced a rigorous method for characterizing bumble bee populations and distribution in roadside environments. Their results indicate that roadside greenways offer potential to support a species-rich community of foraging bumble bees – including the rusty-patched bumble bee.
Grad student studies how state-mandated pollinator plots support native bees
(NC State) Hannah Levenson has spent the past four years collecting and identifying bees from small plots of wildflowers planted at the 18 research stations operated by NC State and the North Carolina Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services. Because of the network of research stations, she is able to study bees in a broad array of different climates – from the mountains 3,200 feet above sea level to the coast and from the rich Blacklands to the dry Sandhills. “To my knowledge this is the only project that has looked at bees on such a large scale across the whole state."
Alfalfa leafcutting bees like nests that face north
(Entomology Today) Alfalfa leafcutting bees are exceedingly demanding about picking a site in nest boxes used for commercial production that is not too hot and not too cold but where the temperature is just right for their eggs and larvae. New research shows that the right location in a nest box may be only a couple of inches away from the wrong one.
Pesticides damage the brains of baby bees
(CNN) Research from the Imperial College London has found that baby bumble bees can feel the effects of food contaminated by pesticides brought back into the colony, making them poorer at performing tasks later in life. Pesticide-contaminated food caused parts of the bee brain to grow less, leading to older adult bees possessing smaller and functionally impaired brains – an effect that appeared to be permanent and irreversible.
Sugar-poor diets wreak havoc on bumble bee queens’ health
(University of California, Riverside) Current research indicates that a queen bumble bee’s diet can impact how quickly her brood develops, or whether she’s able to live through hibernation. A new study from Dr. Hollis Woodard and her team at UC Riverside demonstrates that without adequate sugar, the queen’s fat body, which functions like a human liver, does not correctly produce the enzymes required for healthy metabolism and detoxification from pesticides.
Common bee virus causes bees to forage prematurely
(University of Minnesota) A new study from the University of Minnesota found that deformed wing virus causes a honey bee’s brain to function as though the bee is older than it is. This often leads infected bees to forage prematurely, which can cause diminished spatial memory and colony failure. Additionally, these infected foragers may be more likely to spread the virus to neighboring colonies because of their disoriented state.
Winner of ISU Three Minute Thesis is grad student who studies bees
(videtteonline) The Three Minute Thesis is a research communication competition that challenges master's and Ph.D. students to describe their research topic and its significance in just three minutes to a general audience. This year's first-place winner is Austin C. Calhoun, whose thesis is focused on the interactive impact of a fungicide and parasite on bumble bee health.
Technology
Honey bees recognize that six is more than four
(University of Cologne) Zoologists from the University of Cologne have demonstrated that honey bees have the cognitive abilities to perform so called numerosity estimation, allowing them to solve simple mathematical problems using just a single neuron. This could provide a newer, simpler model for machine learning.
One More Thing…
The Daily Bee at bees.photo. A new bee photo everyday. From a guy with some cameras, who is neither an entomologist nor a botanist. Appears to have launched in Feb. 2020.