Eric Worrall writes: At the University of East Anglia (UEA), the place that gave us Climategate, researchers have discovered climate change affects the ability of bees to pollinate a rare orchid which mimics a female bee in order to attract the attention of pollinators. Apparently warm weather causes bees to emerge early, before the flowers, therefore the bees get buzzy with each other, rather than being distracted by bee mimicking flowers. From this finding, the researchers extrapolate the progressive breakdown of all pollination systems, therefore we must shut down industrial civilization.
According to The Register;
“… where the climate was found to be warmer in the early stages of Spring, bees were sleepily wrapping their fuzzy bodies around their female counterparts, even though the orchids had already flowered, the scientists said. … There will be progressive disruption of pollination systems with climatic warming, which could lead to the breakdown of coevolved interactions between species because they either respond either to different seasonal cues, or to the same cues at different rates.”
What can I say – the compelling conclusion of this study can only be disputed if you refuse to believe that happy, well satisfied bees are a sign of the end times.
We’re talking of a solitary bee species here, so males and females will be approximately equal on numbers. Here is what they claim:
” Warming by as little as 2°C causes the males to emerge much earlier, meaning they are less well synchronised with the orchids. The problem is compounded by the female bees which are also emerging earlier, and attracting the attention of the male bees. This means that the male bees are more likely to copulate with the female bees, rather than pollinating the orchids.
There will be progressive disruption of pollination systems with climatic warming, which could lead to the breakdown of coevolved interactions between species because they either respond either to different seasonal cues, or to the same cues at different rates.”
Now, if this coevolved system is so sensitive breakdown due to warming, you would expect that the affected species Ophrys sphegodes must be close to its southern limit of distribution in Britain would you not?
Well it isn’t, it reaches its extreme northern limit in southern Britain (Dorset, Hampshire, Kent and Sussex). It occurs southwards and eastwards all the way to the Mediterranean, including i. a. Sardinia, the Maltese Islands, Crete, Anatolia, northwestern Iran and Turkmenistan. Now I have always thought that e. g. Malta is rather more than two degrees warmer than southern England, and a quick check in my old climatology textbook (printed in 1969 and thus unadjusted and unhomogenized) shows that the (annual) difference between Plymouth and La Valetta is about 8 degrees, and that the two coldest months in La Valetta (January and February) is about a degree warmer than May in Plymouth. So somehow Ophrys sphegodes manages to hoodwink enough bees to survive even in mediterranean climes, which comes as no surprise since all such coevolved interactions between species take quite some time to evolve, much longer than climate has ever remained stable in this heavily glaciated icehouse world of ours.
Remember that 12 000 years ago the downs where the orchids grow were tundra, and 18,000 years ago they were polar desert, while on the other hand 120,000 years ago they had a climate about as warm as northwestern Spain today.
Now what will happen if the bees do come out significantly earlier than the orchids? Simple: the earliest-flowering orchids will (on average) produce more seeds than the late-flowering ones, and the next orchid-generation will (on average) bloom earlier. Remember that nearly every species on this planet has managed to survive one or more glacial cycles with huge and abrupt climatic shifts (the exception being plant species that have originated recently through hybridization, these may indeed be vulnerable to large climate shifts).
We’re talking of a solitary bee species here, so males and females will be approximately equal on numbers.
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the females control how many of their eggs are male and female.
No.
Bees have a haplo-diploid genetic system and most are assumed to be able to control the sex of their offspring by either withholding sperm (male) or allowing fertilisation (female). But haplo-dilpod systems are often female-biased – typically males can mate many females, so why invest in more of them than you need? So, the actual proportion of males is likely to depend on a variety of selective factors. I wouldn’t assume a sex ratio of 50:50.
Exactly! +10
Not exactly, perhaps over a very long period of time.
The orchid species referenced do not sprout from seed every season. The plant forms a tuber that will sprout next years flowering stalk. While the older tubers help store food for the plant they can under duress start another shoot.
What else happens is that the bee orchids are not restricted to one specific temperature/water/climate zone. Anywhere the grasslands or meadows are the orchids are likely there nor do they need to send up a flowering shoot every year. Some years produce a bounty of flowers because the conditions were right.
Bees that mature too soon but mature at mid altitude up a hill will be just in time for orchids growing in a warmer zone at lower altitude. Those horny male bees will travel a fair distance, for a bee, to track down their loves.
Anyway, the orchids will survive season to season as long as conditions are right for their tubers to form; or perhaps better stated as long as conditions were not too severely wrong so that tubers are killed, the orchids will live on.
showed that flight date of the solitary bee Andrena nigroaenea is advanced more by higher temperatures than is flowering date in the deceptive orchid Ophrys sphegodes.
OK, it’s about solitary bees, not hive-dwelling European honey bees. That makes more sense. I’m still not worried.
Orchids have been with us for tens of millions of years. How did the orchid concerned survive the Holocene climate optimum?
there is no shortage of males looking to do the deed:
“Copulation is normally brief and often involves the mating pair getting mobbed by all the nearby males … When a receptive female is encountered by one male he will attempt to mate with her, if more than one male is present the others will probably also attempt to mate with her and a large mass of bees, all but one being male, will tumble to the ground.”
http://www.earthlife.net/insects/solbees.html
Does this truly sound like a situation in which the flowers are going to be lonely?
Are you suggesting frustration has a hand in pseudocopulation?
and reality, in hotter cities.
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2010/jun/23/can-cities-save-bees
“But surprisingly, the industry has discovered that bees kept in urban areas are healthier and produce better honey”
Sure, heat island effect has already occurred in urban areas . Still plenty of bees around. How do the explain UHI temp increases?
There are evil currents working at UEA with the purpose of destroying the reputation of that institution from within, so it seems. First, CRU and climate gate and now this.
To bee or not to bee.
2B or Not 2B:
Famously, the square root of 4B^2.
Freudian slip? I thought 0.2ºC in a hundred years was a planet killer. Dunno what it’s like in Great Britain, but bees in this part of the world are subject to annual temperatures ranging from below 0ºF to above 100ºF and temperature swings during the day in excess of 50ºF on a regular basis.
Nextly – the current temperature anywhere in the world is not what it has always been and never has been and not every plant can grow just anywhere (though I do get a good crop of coffee beans from my Hawaiian trees here in the Pacific North Wet). Bees and flowers change with the times else they wouldn’t be here today. I think it is past time to retire some of the educators at UEA because they’re exhibiting symptoms of serial ignorance.
Another aspect of orchid biology: the seeds are microscopically small, are produced in astronomical numbers and are widely dispersed by wind. For example a couple of years ago I found Marsh Helleborine established in recently created suitable habitat at least 50 km from the nearest possible seed-source. So if the South Downs are getting warmer (or even uncomfortably warm) one would expect Ophrys sphegodes to start popping up on other cooler limey uplands which have now become the “right” temperature, e. g. the Derbyshire Peak.
Only 1 bee be out of 5000 or more are of interest to the males. The workers are infertile and the drones take no notice of them Only the queen and only on her mating flight do the drones have a purpose. Maybe the orchids smell like a queen. The workers have no use for sex or reproduction being ill equipped in that regard.
Read the thread please. These are solitary bees. No infertile workers.
Don’t I recall a big scare about killer bees from the South America replacing bees as we knew them? How many years ago was that and I haven’t seen any around. Another prediction nullified by nature.
Oh yeah, killer bees. i remember that from the 70s. There was a 98/100 consensus on that , i was a terrified kid back then. Thats one reason why, as I get older I tend to ignore most of the science reported in the NEWS. All false alarms.
The thing about killer bees is that they readily abandon their hive, which means that they don’t generally have enough honey to survive a winter.
That strategy works where there isn’t much of a winter, but a season without flowers is a show stopper for the killer bees.
Genghis:
Brazil became one of the world’s biggest producers of honey thanks to the Africanized bees since they are more industrious than the more docile easygoing European honeybees.
Africanized bees grow their colonies tremendously quick leading to more frequent swarms breaking off from the colony. When a swarm leaves the colony there are plenty of bees still in the colony.
The idea that Africanized bees can’t survive the winter has been postulated for decades; then back in the 1990’s a beekeeper tested the concept by chilling an Africanized hive. Those bees acted just like regular honeybees do; barren deserts may be more of a hindrance than winter.
If you’re a beekeeper use lots of smoke, otherwise disturb Africanized bees at your own risk.
Well who knew that weather affects the behaviour of insects, animals, fish, and humans. Before climate science came along apparently no one knew this.
Once again a flawed study filled with conclusion (disruption of pollination systems) based on assumptions (the world is warming and it is all bad).
But then it becomes absurd when this report contradicts another report (reported here on this site) that says CO2 will cause increased pollination leading to allergy epidemics. Like everything in AGW, everything is caused by AGW, too much pollination, as well as not enough pollination.
The AGW script is more predictable than a bad Hollywood movie, identify a natural phenomena, judge it as a malady, and then blame humans.
The orchids have gone troppo?
Global Warming; is there anything they can’t blame on it? Or won’t?
Global Warming?
lots of interesting bee facts:
http://www.earthlife.net/insects/solbees.html
Anthophora plumipes is the Plume-legged Bee, and like many solitary bees it is usual for the males to be seen first, it was nearly two weeks after the first males emerged before I saw any females this year. This is because the female makes her nest in a long hole with the cells that contain the eggs placed one after another, this means that the egg she lays first is the last bee to leave the nest next spring, and visa-versa, i.e. that the last egg she lays is the first bee to leave the nest. In all Hymenopterans the sex of an adult insect is controlled by whether or not the egg is fertilised before it is laid, fertilised eggs produce females and unfertilised eggs produce males. Therefore, because, she can control whether or not to let the sperm she received from the male fertilise any given egg before she lays it, and because she always lays fertilised eggs first and unfertilised eggs last the female Anthophora plumipes ensures that next spring it is always the males that we see first.
Global warming is the bees’ knees.
Not only that but they both emit hydrocarbons!
From Wikipedia “One example, in which both plant and animal alkanes play a role, is the ecological relationship between the sand bee (Andrena nigroaenea) and the early spider orchid (Ophrys sphegodes); the latter is dependent for pollination on the former. Sand bees use pheromones in order to identify a mate; in the case of A. nigroaenea, the females emit a mixture of tricosane (C23H48), pentacosane (C25H52) and heptacosane (C27H56) in the ratio 3:3:1, and males are attracted by specifically this odor. The orchid takes advantage of this mating arrangement to get the male bee to collect and disseminate its pollen; parts of its flower not only resemble the appearance of sand bees, but also produce large quantities of the three alkanes in the same ratio as female sand bees. As a result numerous males are lured to the blooms and attempt to copulate with their imaginary partner: although this endeavor is not crowned with success for the bee, it allows the orchid to transfer its pollen, which will be dispersed after the departure of the frustrated male to different blooms.”
Well.. does this mean we won’t hear bees going: “bzzzzzzz” but instead going; “honk honk”?
(sarc should bee obvious)
scientific rubbish but grant framing gold dust , right in line with normal practice for climate ‘science’
From this finding, the researchers extrapolate the progressive breakdown of all pollination systems
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did the researchers test their hypothesis? did they document an actual reduction in the number of orchids due to lack of pollination? or did they follow the gold standard in climate science? did they simply make stuff up because it sounded right?
heavier objects fall faster than lighter ones, because they are heavier. sounds right, therefore it must be right.
Hey Fred, you missed the key phrase “could be”, ie also implies “could NOT be”. That way you cam make any spurious claim on always fall back of the “could be” clause if it does not work out. This is yet more meaningless dribble, grant fodder.
Authors advance their careers by getting a nice little paper published in a “high impact” journal like Cell and we pay these tossers’ pay checks.
But don’t worry, it’s all in a good cause, you know. Save the planet an’ all that.
Oh dear! Not the same orchid but every cloud has a silver lining I suppose. Bring on the 2C rise please.
After the hottest decade evaaaaaah we have this.
There is a real problem facing bee populations right now, real and serious probem right here, right now! Varroa bee mite and hive collapse. Bees affected by climate change? Not at all. They’ve been around longer than humans.
Bees have been around not only a lot longer than humans, but probably longer than placental mammals.
Yeah, maybe. This (DOI: 10.1126/science.1257570) recent paper in Science has the split between the ant and wasp/bee lineages at around 100 mya. There should have been some angiosperms around then to attract wasps, so bees (really just hairy wasps) may have arisen fairly quickly. I think they are still arguing about when stem placental groups arose, but sometime in the Cretaceous seems likely.
Please excuse my nostalgia for the days when biologists were interested in the understanding nature and the history of life instead of self-flagellating about the evils of mankind.
“There will be progressive disruption of pollination systems with climatic warming, which could lead to the breakdown of coevolved interactions between species because they either respond either to different seasonal cues, or to the same cues at different rates.”
There you have it. I never trusted those fragile co-evolved relationships. They just can’t take any change.
This, BTW, also proves that there never has been any change in the past. The findings of these boffins might be even more important than even they think.
My neighbor’s honey bees froze to death last winter. No global warming here in central Indiana.
This from the University of Easy Access. Doesn’t seem to have improved much then.
Funny stuff… Just kidding (mostly) here, but some of the comments you folks lay down is more entertaining than the thread topic.
After all the “droning” on and on I read this————
The reproductive cycle of bees is unique, and is fundamentally interconnected with the caste system of bee colonies. Within any colony, there are three types of adult bees: the queen, male drones and female workers. A colony will typically have only one queen who lays all the eggs. Female workers are sterile and do not reproduce. Male drones mate with the queen to produce offspring.
Read more : http://www.ehow.com/how-does_4569265_bees-mate.html
Not these bees. They are solitary bees, not eusocial. No sterile workers, zero, nada.
So? The orchids will adapt, or die out. That’s the way things work, whether the local warming is natural or supposedly man-made. Again, do these “scientists” think the climate is supposed to be static??
Of course it is. The world was made in 7 days including rest.
You are implying that you think life evolves!
The University of East Anglia has effectively disproven that by getting this paper published.
I refuse to use a sarc sign so please accept that as jovial trolling.
😉