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  • From: Buck Horton <buck_horton AT unc.edu>
  • To: "Orange County, NC Beekeepers" <ocba AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: [ocba] [Fwd: Concerned about the decline of honeybees and other pollinators?]
  • Date: Fri, 25 Apr 2008 11:28:03 -0400

From a UVA study on the affects of air pollution on insect pollinators.
- Buck

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Concerned about the decline of honeybees and other
pollinators?
Date: Fri, 25 Apr 2008 09:02:38 -0400
From: Sandy Bisdee <sandybisdee AT hotmail.com>
To: <whorton AT email.unc.edu>
References: <8e9c4e940804170914t7bf25a59m25adcfbd7ee353a8 AT mail.gmail.com>




Dear Buck,
I have been saving this for you, thinking that you might be interested. Your e-mail was very interesting and I can really hear your enthusiasm. Thank you.

Sandy B.

------------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Thu, 17 Apr 2008 12:14:10 -0400
From: healingrhythms AT gmail.com
To: asnc-list AT rtpnet.org
Subject: [asnc-list] Concerned about the decline of honeybees and
other pollinators?


We are all wondering what is really happening with the bees. This
study sheds some light on this concern.


Flowers' Fragrance Diminished by Air Pollution

by Leslee Dru Browning (see all articles by this author)
<http://www.naturalnews.com/Author63.html>


(NaturalNews) We have all wondered what was happening to the honey
bees. Now, from recent research by the University of Virginia, we
have an answer.

Air pollution from power plants and automobiles is destroying the
fragrance of flowers and thereby inhibiting the ability of
pollinating insects to follow scent trails to their source, a new
University of Virginia study indicates. This could partially explain
why wild populations of some pollinators, particularly bees �- which
need nectar for food �- are declining in several areas of the world,
including California and the Netherlands. The study appears online
in the journal /Atmospheric Environment/.

"The scent molecules produced by flowers in a less polluted
environment, such as in the 1800s, could travel for roughly 1,000 to
1,200 meters; but in today's polluted environment downwind of major
cites, they may travel only 200 to 300 meters," said Jose D.
Fuentes, a professor of environmental sciences at the University of
Virginia and a co-author of the study. "This makes it increasingly
difficult for pollinators to locate the flowers."

The result, potentially, is a vicious cycle where pollinators
struggle to find enough food to sustain their populations, and
populations of flowering plants, in turn, do not get pollinated
sufficiently to proliferate and diversify.

Other studies, as well as the actual experience of farmers, have
shown that populations of bees, particularly bumblebees, and
butterflies have declined greatly in recent years. Fuentes and his
team of University of Virginia researchers, including Quinn
McFrederick and James Kathilankal, believe that air pollution
<http://www.naturalnews.com/air_pollution.html>, especially during
the peak period of summer, may be a factor.

To investigate this, they created a mathematical model of how the
scents of flowers travel with the wind. The scent molecules produced
by flowers are very volatile and they quickly bond with pollutants
such as ozone, hydroxyl and nitrate radicals, which destroy the
aromas they produce. This means that instead of traveling intact for
long distances with the wind, the scents are chemically altered and
the flowers, in a sense, no longer smell like flowers. This forces
pollinators to search farther and longer and possibly to rely more
on sight and less on smell.

The scientists calculated scent levels and distances that scents can
travel under different conditions, from relatively unpolluted
pre-industrial revolution levels, to the conditions now existing in
rural areas downwind from large cities.

"It quickly became apparent that air pollution
<http://www.naturalnews.com/pollution.html> destroys the aroma of
flowers, by as much as 90 percent from periods before automobiles
<http://www.naturalnews.com/automobiles.html> and heavy industry,"
Fuentes said. "And the more air pollution there is in a region, the
greater the destruction of the flower scents."

The National Science Foundation funded the investigation.

I, myself, have often wondered if air pollution may be the
underlying cause of many of the new emerging chronic debilitating
diseases like fibromyalgia, childhood asthma and other illnesses
that seem to have proliferated in the last 20 years.

Sources:

Newswise ((http://www.newswise.com:80/articles/vie...
<http://www.newswise.com/articles/view/539702/?sc=dwhr>)

University of Virginia News Source (http://www.virginia.edu/)


About the author

Leslee Dru Browning is a 6th generation Medical Herbalist &
Nutritionist from the ancestral line of Patty Bartlett Sessions;
Pioneer Mid-Wife & Herbalist. Leslee practiced Medical Herbalism and
Nutritional Healing for over 25 years and specialized in Cancer
Wellness along with Chronic Illness. She now devotes her career to
teaching people, through her writing, about Natural Healing from An
Herbal Perspective.

--
Margaretta Bornhorst
919-824-7337

------------------------------------------------------------------------
Back to work after baby– how do you know when you’re ready? <http://lifestyle.msn.com/familyandparenting/articleNW.aspx?cp-documentid=5797498&ocid=T067MSN40A0701A>
_______________________________________________
asnc-list mailing list
asnc-list AT rtpnet.org
http://rtpnet.org/mailman/listinfo/asnc-list

Opinions expressed in this message are those of the sender and not the ASNC
(Anthroposophical Society in NC).
(http://www.RTPnet.org/asnc)


  • [ocba] [Fwd: Concerned about the decline of honeybees and other pollinators?], Buck Horton, 04/25/2008

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