Wednesday, November 18, 2015

Diesel Befuddles Bees by Changing Flower Smells

 


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

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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