Even Slight Temperature Increases May Be Enough To Wipe Out Bees In Southwestern U.S.
Climate change poses all sorts of potential challenges for Earth and those that call it home. But it could be especially troubling for bees. A new study from Northwestern University and the Chicago Botanic Garden found that global warming could lead to extinction for bees in the southwestern U.S. and other naturally warm climates.
The two-year experiment involved altering the temperature of bees’ nests to simulate a warmer, future climate. The result: 35 percent of bees died in the first year, and 70 percent died in the second year. This was compared to a 1-2 percent mortality rate for bees in a control group, where the temperature was left unchanged.
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To study how climate change could affect bees, CaraDonna and his team set up three types of nesting environments in Arizona’s Santa Catalina Mountains, where they studied a species called Osmia ribifloris, often known as the blueberry mason bee. The bees are native to the western U.S. and northern Mexico, where they thrive by building nests inside holes and cracks in dead tree stumps.
Researchers manipulated the temperatures of the nests by painting them to simulate past, present and future climates. A third of the nests were painted black to absorb more heat, simulating a future climate predicted for the years 2040 to 2099. Another third received a white, reflective paint with a cooling treatment, creating a slightly colder climate similar to that of the 1950s. The final third of nests were coated with a transparent paint, leaving their natural wood color as a control group.
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https://chicagotonight.wttw.com/2018/06/28/climate-change-could-kill-bees-northwestern-study-finds