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  • From: "Lawrence F. London, Jr." <lfl@intrex.net>
  • To: permaculture <permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: [permaculture] BBC NEWS | Science/Nature | Bees and flowers decline in step
  • Date: Thu, 20 Jul 2006 23:49:27 -0400


http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/northern_ireland/5051068.stm
The fate of bees and the plants they pollinate appear to be linked
Diversity in bees and wild flowers is declining together, at least in Britain
and the Netherlands, research shows.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/4621184.stm
Bees reared in cities 'healthier'
Bees reared in cities are healthier and more productive than their country
cousins, a study by French beekeepers'
association Unaf has found.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/3523453.stm
Chemicals 'kill 90bn French bees'
By Alex Kirby
BBC News Online environment correspondent
Bees pollinate many crops
French beekeepers say about 90 billion of their insects have been killed over
the last 10 years by a pesticide.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/3033817.stm
Save the bumblebee, gardeners urged
Britain's native bumblebees are under serious threat and gardeners should
plant bumblebee-friendly plants to help save
them, the National Trust and English Nature said on Friday.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/1314012.stm
Bumblebees could face extinction

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/5201218.stm
Last Updated: Thursday, 20 July 2006, 23:06 GMT 00:06 UK
Bees and flowers decline in step
By Richard Black
Environment correspondent, BBC News website
Scientists from the two countries examined records kept by enthusiasts dating
back more than a century.

They write in the journal Science that habitat alterations, climate change
and modern industrial farming are possible
factors in the linked decline.

There is a chance, they say, that the decline in pollinating bees could have
detrimental effects on food production.

"The economic value of pollination worldwide is thought to be between £20m and
£50m ($37m and $91m) each year," said
Simon Potts from the University of Reading, UK, one of the scientists
involved.

While declines in Britain and the Netherlands might not indicate a global
trend, the team says, it is an issue deserving
serious future research.

Costs of specialism

Study leader Koos Biesmeijer from the UK's University of Leeds is not the
first biologist to note the value of amateur
enthusiasts to British conservation studies, and will not be the last.

"We have relied here on records kept by enthusiasts; just like bird-watchers
keep records of bird-sightings, they keep
records of bees and hoverflies and plants," he told the BBC News website.

"In the UK, insect records come from the Bees, Wasps and Ants Recording
Society (BWars) and the Hoverfly Recording
Scheme (HRS), while in Holland the Dutch Entomological Society does something
similar.


Bee on flower. Image: Mike Edwards
The ultimate drivers are changes in our landscapes; intensive agriculture,
extensive use of pesticides, drainage,
nitrogen deposition
Koos Biesmeijer

Pesticides blame for bee fall
"The records go back even into the last part of the 19th Century, and then
some of these enthusiasts have gone back into
the scientific literature and verfied records."

From these records comes a picture of reducing diversity among bees and wild
flowering plants.

Bee species which rely on certain plants, and plants which rely on certain
bees, have fared worse; more flexible species
of both have done better.

In Britain, bee species which have increased since 1980 are those which were
already common before.

The researchers also looked at hoverflies, and found a mixed picture, with
diversity remaining roughly constant in
Britain but appearing to increase marginally in the Netherlands.

Hoverflies do pollinate plants, but are less choosy than many bee species,
and do not depend so directly on nectar to
feed their young.

Overall, plants which pollinate via wind or water appear to be spreading,
while those which rely on insects decline.

Holistic handling

If the diversity of bees and plants is decreasing, one question is: which
declined first?

This study cannot provide an answer, though it appears the fates of both are
intertwined; but the root causes of the
decline are clear, Dr Biesmeijer argues.

"The ultimate drivers are changes in our landscapes; intensive agriculture,
extensive use of pesticides, drainage,
nitrogen deposition.

"All of these factors favour subsets of plants and subsets of bees.

"And if you want to prevent them you have to look at the ecosystem level,
protecting the habitat and the groups of species."

Where habitats have been restored, for example under agro-environment
schemes, bee and plant diversity has sometimes
started to re-emerge, he said.

While such changes may have significant impacts nationally, the team points
out that the environments of Britain and the
Netherlands, with their high population densities and long histories of agriculture,
contain two of the least "natural"
landscapes on Earth.

Other countries, with a greater proportion of natural habitat, may not show
the same declining trend, they say; but
given the importance of bees for pollination, they suggest it would be worth
finding out.

Richard.Black-INTERNET@bbc.co.uk






  • [permaculture] BBC NEWS | Science/Nature | Bees and flowers decline in step, Lawrence F. London, Jr., 07/20/2006

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