Last Resort: Captive breeding for bee conservation
This week on the podcast we have a story about a last resort in bee conservation. It’s a story about the steps we might need to take to prevent a bee species from winking out of existence for ever. It’s a story about the captive breeding and intentional reintroduction of bees into the wild.
This is an idea I first heard about in my conversation with Sheila Colla a few weeks ago (Episode 4, if you want to check it out). It’s an idea that I’d never heard anyone talk about for bees. But it’s an idea – and a probable future – that we need to be talking about. Because if we want it to be successful, we need to be preparing for it now.
Elaine Evans from the University of Minnesota and Tam Smith from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service join me in this episode and graciously indulge my curiosity.
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Conservation
Florida’s rare blue bee rediscovered at Lake Wales Ridge
(Florida Museum of Natural History) Florida's iconic wildlife includes the American alligator, the Florida panther, the scrub jay and the manatee. But some species unique to the state are less familiar, like the ultra-rare blue calamintha bee. First described in 2011, scientists weren’t sure the bee still existed. But that changed this spring when a Florida Museum of Natural History researcher rediscovered the metallic navy insects.
‘Murder hornets’ invade headlines, not the US
(University of California, Riverside) Though “murder hornets” are dominating recent headlines, there are no Asian giant hornets currently known to be living in the U.S. or Canada, according to UC Riverside Entomology Research Museum Senior Scientist Doug Yanega. “There have not been any sightings in 2020 that would suggest the eradication attempt was unsuccessful.”
Buried under colonial concrete, Botany Bay has even been robbed of its botany
(The Conversation) The HMS Endeavour’s week-long stay on the shores of Kamay in 1770 yielded so many botanical specimens unknown to western science, Captain James Cook called the area Botany Bay. Today, however, the site better reflects 20th-century European exploitation of the Australian landscape than it does early or pre-British Botany Bay. Yet not all is lost. “We studied pollen released from flowering plants and conifers, which can accumulate and preserve in sediment layers through time. Looking at this preserved pollen lets us develop a timeline of vegetation change over hundreds to thousands of years.”
Economics
Microalgae food for honey bees
(USDA) A microscopic algae could provide a complete and sustainably sourced supplemental diet to boost the robustness of managed honey bees, according to scientists with the Agricultural Research Service. The microalgae, Arthrospira platensis, has a nutritional profile that closely resembles pollen.
Science
Does urbanization homogenize regional biodiversity in native bees?
(University of California, Riverside) When you think of California in the 1970s, maybe you think of hippies, Fleetwood Mac, or skateboards. But if you’re an entomologist, you might think of all the natural spaces that have since been devoured by urbanization and wonder what happened to the native bees that lived in them. An assistant professor of entomology has embarked on a project to figure out how habitat destruction has affected native bees in California by resampling sites first studied in the 1970s.
Researchers discover a gene in honey bees that causes virgin birth
(University of Sydney) Reversions to asexual reproduction are rare in nature. Asexual birth in the Cape honey bee may be the first time that the genetic basis of such a phenomenon has been discovered.
Bumble bee disease, reproduction shaped by flowering strip plants
(NC State University) Flowering strips can help offset pollinator decline but may also bring risks of higher pathogen infection rates for pollinators foraging in those strips. Bumble bees exposed to certain plants showed higher rates of infection by Crithidia bombi, a bee pathogen that is associated with reduced bee-foraging abilities as well as mortality in food-compromised bees.
One More Thing…
Via Rachael Hamby @HambyRachael on Twitter: “When 3/6 people living in a house are plant scientists and one woodworking roommate gets bored, you get a plant hormone inspired shelf. #brassinosteroid #quarantineprojects”