Loss of bees could be 'a blow to UK economy'

If bees and other pollinators were to disappear completely, the cost to the UK economy could be up to $290 million per year in the UK and $12 billion in the US, scientists have warned. (Left: Eucera is a type of solitary bee)

Bee populations dropped 17 percent in the UK last year, according to the British Bee Association, and nearly 30 percent in the United States says the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Parasitic mites called varroa (right), agricultural pesticides and the effects of climate change have all been implicated in what has been dubbed "colony collapse disorder" (CCD).

This amounts to about 13% of the country's income from farming. In a bid to save the declining insects, up to £10m has been invested in nine projects that will explore threats to pollinators.

The Insect Pollinators Initiative will look at different aspects of the insects' decline. The initiative brings together specialists from a number of UK universities, as well as from the Food & Environment Research Agency and the Natural Environment Research Council's (Nerc) Center for Ecology and Hydrology.

It is funded by several public and charity organizations, led by the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC).

Honeybees, hoverflies, wasps, bumblebees, moths and butterflies play a vital role in feeding people through the pollination of crops.

Speaking at a news briefing at the Science Media Center, Professor Andrew Watkinson, director of the Living with Environmental Change program, said that the new initiative "allowed us to bring in new skills in gene sequencing and epidemiological modeling with the expertise that already exists in the pollinator research community".

Some projects will look at factors affecting the health and survival of pollinators in general. Others will focus on specific species and diseases.

'Catastrophic' decline

Professor Watkinson said there was no single factor that could explain the pollinators' decline. "There's a whole range of agriculture and land use, disease, environmental change [and] pesticides," he said.

"To tackle a complex problem like the decline of pollinating insects, where there are a number of potential causes, requires wide-ranging research."

For some species, such as bumblebees, the decline was "catastrophic", he added. "It's really difficult to quantify [the extent of the decline of pollinators] and that's one of the problems we really need to address.(Left: hoverfly)

"What we need is some robust science and I think that this program is going to provide it." Another speaker, Claire Carvell from the Center for Ecology and Hydrology, said that since the 1970s, there had been a 75% decline of butterfly species in the UK.

Also, out of 25 species of bumblebees, three had gone extinct, she added.

These "extra special" bees with large hairy bodies are very effective at transferring pollen between flowers, she commented.(Right: Inspectors are monitoring the health of honeybee colonies in England and Wales)

"They are also active at lower temperatures than other bees, so you'll see them out working earlier and later in the day.

"But bumblebees have declined worldwide, largely due to the loss of flowers and other habitats they need to survive in the countryside."

Dr Carvell said that her team will use a method of collecting DNA from live wild bumblebees to estimate how far queen bees fly to start new nests and how far workers fly to forage.

"These findings will allow us to manage landscapes in ways that are effective in conserving bumblebee populations," she concluded.

A brain disorder?

Neurobiologist Chris Connolly, of the University of Dundee, is leading research into the effect pesticides have on bees.

In particular, his team will assess any possible damage to the insects' abilities to gather food, navigate and even perform their special "waggle dance", which they use to let other bees know where nectar can be found.

He said that the pollinators' decline could be partially explained by a brain disorder - triggered by chemicals in pesticides.

"A single pesticide or miticide is not likely to be responsible… but a cocktail of different pesticides or miticides might [have a combined effect] to amplify the brain problem," explained Dr Connolly.

His study will concentrate on identifying these dangerous combinations in order to advise farmers about how to avoid them in the future.

It will include fitting tiny radio frequency ID tags to pollinators, which will act like "barcodes at the supermarket", recording when insects enter and leave the nest.

Other projects include investigating ecology and conservation of pollinators in cities, researching the impact of a mite named Varroa destructor, and looking into the effects of agriculture on bees. (Right: Wasps are in decline too)

The vital thing, Professor Watkinson stated, was for the scientists to communicate the results of their studies to the people in the field - beekeepers and farmers.

"It is imperative that the science that's being done is fed through as quickly as possible to the conservationists and to the agricultural community, so that we can ensure food security and also the maintenance of our biodiversity," he said.

Cell phone Influence?

A new study from India has suggested that cell phone radiation may be contributing to declines in bee populations in some areas of the world. Researches in India have been studying the problem and they believe cell phones could also be to blame for some of the losses.

In a study at Panjab University in Chandigarh, northern India, researchers fitted cell phones to a hive and powered them up for two fifteen-minute periods each day.

After three months, they found the bees stopped producing honey, egg production by the queen bee halved, and the size of the hive dramatically reduced.

Andrew Goldsworthy, a biologist from the UK's Imperial College, London, has studied the biological effects of electromagnetic fields. He thinks it's possible bees could be affected by cell phone radiation.

The reason, Goldsworthy says, could hinge on a pigment in bees called cryptochrome. "Animals, including insects, use cryptochrome for navigation," Goldsworthy told CNN.

"They use it to sense the direction of the earth's magnetic field and their ability to do this is compromised by radiation from [cell] phones and their base stations. So basically bees do not find their way back to the hive." (Left: pollinated flowers)

But the UK's Mobile Operators Association -- which represents the UK's five mobile network operators -- told CNN: "Research scientists have already considered possible factors involved in CCD and have identified the areas for research into the causes of CCD which do not include exposure to radio waves."

Scientists in the US studying colony collapse syndrome for the last few years have also dismissed cell phones as a cause of the bee loss. Studies continue on this and the theory of the researchers study this phenomena is that a variety of factors play a part in the decline of the bees - parasites, environmental pollution, habitat loss, diseases, etc. Climate change has also been included in the list of possible causes. Hopefully, for flowers and fruits and vegetables and orchards and anything else that needs pollination, scientists will identify a cause and a solution soon.

Source:
BBC News,"Loss of bees could be 'a blow to UK economy'", accessed July 1, 2010
Cable News Network, "Study links bee decline to cell phones",accessed July 1, 2010