I do not think that this is that much of a problem unless you are raising fruit trees beside a motor way with heavy truck traffic. The problem will be localized and easily handled by crop planning. Yet i have seen plenty of perennial commercial crops up close to the motorways and no effort to change them out.
Thus it could but by and large it does not.
If it is a concern, a robust fencerow should resolve it well enough..
Diesel befuddles bees by changing flower smells
Posted by Glenn Harris-Southampton on
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Diesel fumes may be reducing the availability of some flower odors, which bees need to find their food.
The findings suggest that toxic nitrous oxide (NOx)
in diesel exhausts could be having an even greater effect on bees’
ability to smell out flowers than scientists previously believed.
NOx is a poisonous pollutant produced by diesel engines that is
harmful to humans, and has previously been shown to confuse bees’ sense
of smell, which they rely on to sniff out their food.
The new study, published in the Journal of Chemical Ecology,
suggests there is now evidence to show that, of the eleven most common
single compounds in floral odors, five can be chemically altered by
exposure to NOx gases from exhaust fumes.
“Bees are worth millions to the British economy alone, but we know
they have been in decline worldwide,” says Robbie Girling, of the
University of Reading’s Centre for Agri-Environmental Research.
“We don’t think that air pollution from diesel vehicles is the main
reason for this decline, but our latest work suggests that it may have a
worse effect on the flower odors needed by bees than we initially
thought.
“People rely on bees and pollinating insects for a large proportion
of our food, yet humans have paid the bees back with habitat
destruction, insecticides, climate change, and air pollution. This work
highlights that pollution from dirty vehicles is not only dangerous to
people’s health, but could also have an impact on our natural
environment and the economy.”
“It is becoming clear that bees are at risk from a range of stresses
from neonicitinoid insecticides through to varroa mites,” says coauthor
Guy Poppy, professor of biological sciences at the University of
Southampton.
“Our research highlights that a further stress could be the
increasing amounts of vehicle emissions affecting air quality. Whilst it
is unlikely that these emissions by themselves could be affecting bee
populations, combined with the other stresses, it could be the tipping
point.”
The Leverhulme Trust funded the work.
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