Only hardier species can adapt to global warming
Story submitted by Eric Worrall
Another claim that its worse than we thought – this time warmer temperatures are killing the bees.
According to Scott Groom, PhD student at Flinders University, mathematical modelling has connected changes in bee populations over the past 20,000 years across the South Pacific region, and exceptionally large declines in bee populations, with changes in temperature.
Groom says that prior to the ice age when temperatures rose, many bee species migrated to cooler areas, with only one hardy species able to adapt to the warmer temperature.
“They’re almost canaries in the coal mine, you can see that they’re going to be the first sort of species to be impacted by changes in climate,” Groom said.
The study, “Parallel responses of bees to Pleistocene climate change in three isolated archipelagos of the southwestern Pacific” can be found at the link below.
http://rspb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/281/1785/20133293.abstract
Abstract
The impacts of glacial cycles on the geographical distribution and size of populations have been explored for numerous terrestrial and marine taxa. However, most studies have focused on high latitudes, with only a few focused on the response of biota to the last glacial maximum (LGM) in equatorial regions. Here, we examine how population sizes of key bee fauna in the southwest Pacific archipelagos of Fiji, Vanuatu and Samoa have fluctuated over the Quaternary. We show that all three island faunas suffered massive population declines, roughly corresponding in time to the LGM, followed by rapid expansion post-LGM. Our data therefore suggest that Pleistocene climate change has had major impacts across a very broad tropical region. While other studies indicate widespread Holarctic effects of the LGM, our data suggest a much wider range of latitudes, extending to the tropics, where these climate change repercussions were important. As key pollinators, the inferred changes in these bee faunas may have been critical in the development of the diverse Pacific island flora. The magnitude of these responses indicates future climate change scenarios may have alarming consequences for Pacific island systems involving pollinator-dependent plant communities and agricultural crops.
I don’t have access to the full text, so I don’t know whether other possible causes of population crashes, such as bee killing Varroa mites, were considered.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Varroa .
Varroa mites were originally discovered in Asia, but have since spread worldwide. Some bees are resistant to Varroa mites, because they have evolved hygiene behaviour, which removes and kills the mites.
@ur momisugly Jimbo – The proliferation of canaries you have documented goes a long way to accounting for the global warming cacophony. It reminds me of the old civil service adage “When everything has top priority, nothing has priority.”
The report was later covered by the BBC.
Maybe international trade caused the global bee population crash. Global warming has nothing to do with it. The 0.8C rise over 140 years can’t do it. Summer to winter temperatures in some northern countries can vary from -10C up to 30C. There is your clue.
…warmer temperatures are killing the bees.
————
Oh bee hive! (in an Austin Powers “accent”)
http://www.forbes.com/sites/jonentine/2013/04/11/science-collapse-disorder-the-real-story-behind-neonics-and-mass-bee-deaths/
“Colony Collapse Disorder—it sounds catastrophic and frightening. The Genetic Literacy Project’s Jon Entine separates fact from fiction.
It’s estimated that over the past five years, some 30 percent of bees in the United States have either disappeared or failed to survive to pollinate blossoms in the spring. That’s about 50% more than the rate expected. The problem is direr in some other countries. In Spain, recent data indicate a loss close to 80% of beehives. On the other hand, in Canada and Australia, there is no sign of Colony Collapse Disorder.”
Australia and Canada have no sign of CCD and they are similar in climate?
“Groom says that prior to the ice age when temperatures rose, many bee species migrated to cooler areas, with only one hardy species able to adapt to the warmer temperature.”
Australia has over 1,500 species of native bee!
I quit reading after “PhD student.”
He can use “PhD” after he’s earned it, not before.
I would like to know how they actually counted the number of bees on South Pacific Islands over the last 20,000….oh computer modeled bee populations. Sounds like the next video game on Nintendo, Billy the Bee’s Adventures and War on Climate Change.
“Groom says that prior to the ice age when temperatures rose, many bee species migrated to cooler areas, with only one hardy species able to adapt to the warmer temperature.” Everyone knows that 20,000 years ago, prior to the ice age when temperatures were rising, bees were migrating to glaciated areas because bees LOVE ice. Obviously all I can do is make fun of this junk.
Bees have been around way over 100M years and here is a link to the discovery of one in amber from over 100M years ago, http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2006/10/061025-oldest-bee.html, which was the Mid-Cretaceous Periodca. 120 to 90 Million Years Ago
which even NOAA admits was much warmer than today. From NOAA:
Data from many sources. The Mid-Cretaceous period is one period in the geologic past that stands out as distinctly warmer than today, particularly at high latitudes. During the mid-Cretaceous Period, 120-90 million years ago, fossil remains of plants and animals believed to inhabit warm environments, were found at much higher latitudes. Breadfruit trees apparently grew as far north as Greenland (55° N), and in the oceans, warm water corals grew farther away from the equator in both hemispheres. Cretaceous period occurred far enough in the past that continents were in different positions, with different mountain chains and shallow seas in some places that do not exist today.
Too bad that these bees will be wiped out after so long a run!
I suppose the rising temperatures will be perfect for wasps. The author missed a trick here
davidmhoffer says:
May 9, 2014 at 9:24 am
i must be reading this backward from everyone else. The study says:
We show that all three island faunas suffered massive population declines, roughly corresponding in time to the LGM, followed by rapid expansion post-LGM.
In other words:
Cold = less bees
Warm = more bees
======
You’re right David……….rapid expansion after the last glacier maximum….when it got warmer
Jimbo says:
May 9, 2014 at 8:51 am
“They’re almost canaries in the coal mine, you can see that they’re going to be the first sort of species to be impacted by changes in climate,” Groom said.
Now where have I heard about these global warming canaries? This PHD student has a lot to learn.
Hold onto your hats…
________________________
Good job!
…but it don’t matter anyhow….
Even Berkeley says there’s been no global warming over there in 15 years…..
http://berkeleyearth.lbl.gov/auto/Stations/TAVG/Figures/175395-TAVG-Raw.png
Jimbo says:
May 9, 2014 at 8:51 am
Hold onto your hats…
=======
ROTFL…..excellent Jimbo
Perhaps this post-grad student is tkaing tips from the lobster kid who made up a study claiming to show lobster cannibalism is due to climate change and not a wells documented behavior?
I have been told that global warming would be felt strongest at higher latitudes, towards the poles, in winter and at night. Will these bees feel it?
I am just glad to see the folks and bees of Fiji are finally bucking the devastating effects of Fijian global warming.
Speed says:
I stopped reading after, ” … mathematical modelling … “
Why?
Mathematical modeling can be abused, as regular readers here know. It can also be used appropriately, as regular readers here know.
Dismissing something on the sole basis that it uses mathematical modeling is an absurd rule.
Outstanding effort on the part of the researchers! I’ve been trying to work out for years how to get someone else to pay for me to cruise the islands of the South Pacific. Tying bee research to global warming hadn’t even crossed my mind. Kudos for their imagination.
With the exception of davidmhoffer May 9, 2014 at 9:24 am, all commenters and the post author Worrall seem incapable of reading — but are excellent at brainless knee jerk condemnation.
Please read this sentence from the Abstract again:
We show that all three island [bee] faunas suffered massive population declines, roughly corresponding in time to the LGM, followed by rapid expansion post-LGM.
The LGM (Last Glacial Maximum) was the coldest point in Earth history since the Karoo Ice Age of 240 million years ago. To reiterate, a mere 20,000 years ago this planet was colder than at any time in roughly the last quarter of a billion years.
Researcher Scott Groom found evidence that the LGM was worldwide. The incredible LGM cold even affected the tropics. It wasn’t colder than a dead penguin just where you live today, it was colder all over. It was so cold it wiped out bees in the South Pacific (which is tropical and buffered by oceans).
Indeed, paleobotanical research in South America has found evidence that the LGM altered plant communities in the Equatorial Amazon, shrinking rain forests and expanding dry tropical forests.
It was really really cold at the LGM; colder than bees had ever experienced. The Order Hymenoptera originated in the Triassic, a very warm era after the Karoo Ice Age. Bees, like all land animals, had never ever ever been so cold — at the LGM, a mere 20,000 years ago.
Warmer is Better for all living things, including bees.
Does any of this compute? Do you get it yet? Nobody is claiming that global warming will kill off the bees. Just the opposite. Please read carefully before spontaneous jerking.
I am just glad to see the bees of Samoa are finally bucking the devastating effects of Samoan global warming.
Here is something interesting. It concerns something called ‘climate change’ which might as well be short term weather fluctuations over a few years.
Could the above researcher on bees be referring to the early flowering of plants causing bees to eventually move to higher ground after the LGM?
Did they account for the impact of commercial air travel on bees?
These buggers might have been trying to get to Minnesota to escape the heat in Vegas: http://avherald.com/h?article=4731d084
Next they will be making a movie about this stuff!
Wait a minute!
http://youtu.be/VONRQMx78YI
Dang! They aint nuthin that climate change caint due. ‘Ats mighty powful stuff.
I guess them African bees probaly wuz able to adapt tho.
I don’t know when that last article was written. It could have been 5 years ago for all I know. Maybe the local climate has changed again.
To Eric Worrall – What is the source of your comments from the press release and in particular of the “canaries in the coal mine” quote?
The quotes from the press release clearly contradict the findings reported in the abstract. As some have already noted above, the abstract says that the bees died off as the area moved into the last glacial maximum (that is, as it got colder) and expanded rapidly after (that is, when it got warmer again). This is no surprise since all bees (but especially European honeybees) are tropical creatures. Bees thrive in warmer climates.
European honeybees suffer from many maladies. In my opinion, they are in order of priority:
1. The aging out of beekeepers to care for them (until very recently, I was among the youngest members of my local bee club)
2. The loss of habitat – partially to urbanization but probably more to the edge-to-edge planting practices of modern monoculture. Fields of corn and soybean are essentially green deserts to a bee.
3. Parasitic mites and other recently introduced pests (tracheal mites in the 1980s, varroa mites in the 1990s and now small hive beetle)
4. Pesticides from a variety of sources (including new research about the unintended effects of fungicides on bee digestion and about adverse effects from “inert” components)
5. Almond pollination (which has very recently become the dominant factor in the life of the about 50% of colonies that are trucked across the country for pollination and which results in high concentrations of stressed and vulnerable colonies)
Not only is climate change not on that list, it would be on the reverse list – very good for the bees if true. They like it hotter than we do.
You’re right, it sounds like an something the greens would want. Much of our agriculture depends upon bees and huge sectors of our food production would collapse if they bees die off. This would hurt the “Big Ag” industry and could help reduce the population because of scarcity of food.
BTW: Earthworms are also not native to North America — they’re another European import!
When harvest time comes guess what they’ll blame? Global warming!
Cold kills too.