Decline of Bumblebees Due to Climate Change Might Spell Disaster for Human Race

A recent study by researchers at the University of Missouri as well as Webster University discovered that the future of these once-abundant pollinators is in danger due to warming temperatures brought on by climate change.

According to Candace Galen, emerita professor of biological sciences at MU, the bumblebee population decline could have an effect on ecology as a whole and even human life. Galen is also a co-author of the study.

Bumblebees have adapted to survive above the timberline in the higher altitudes of the Rocky Mountains in Colorado, which are known as alpine regions. Here, temperatures are typically cold, and also the summer growing season, which is essential to their survival, is brief.

Climate Change

As the climate heats up and becomes more unpredictable, according to Galen, organisms adapted to earlier conditions are vanishing. The ecological services that sustain and enhance human life, such as pollination services, are also declining quickly along with biodiversity.

The shorter, colder growing season that alpine bumblebees were previously used to has vanished as warming temperatures are extending the growing season at high altitudes. Bumblebees from lower elevations, which are more opportunistic foragers, are also having the chance to move upwards towards the alpine regions as a result of the longer growing season as well as warming temperatures, according to Galen.

Nicole Miller-Struttmann, a professor in Biological Sciences at Webster University, said that Alpine bumblebees continue to primarily gather pollen and nectar from flowers during the brief period that was more typical in these alpine regions fifty years ago, and they have not evolved to collecting over longer and much more variable time periods. Miller-Struttmann is also a co-author of the study

According to Miller-Struttmann, the alpine bumblebees are taking the brunt of being "stuck in a rut."

According to Miller-Struttmann, they foresee local extinction in regions where alpine bees are unable to migrate further upslope, from which the climate is cooler, and where the growing season is still relatively brief. Because they are caught in an evolutionary trap, bumblebees are unable to adapt to temperature changes quickly enough.

The study combines information from the summers of 2012 through 2014 on three Colorado mountains with historical records of alpine bumblebees and plants going back to the middle of the 1970s.

Busy Bees

Galen would also like to thank the group of enthusiastic MU undergraduate students who got up early every day of the summer to make the trek above 13,000 feet in search of bumblebees in addition to her team.

The study was a collaborative effort between the authors, undergraduate students, and grants from the University of Missouri, Webster University, Mountain Area Land Trust, and the National Science Foundation, Science Daily reports.

Bumblebees

Because of their prowess at dispersing pollen and fertilizing a variety of wild plants as well as significant crops, bumblebees are one of the most significant pollinators. They are better suited to pollinating Arctic tundra, coastal plains, and mountain habitats because they can fly in colder temperatures than other bees.

Bumblebee species vary in the length of their tongues, which they use to access plant pollen. Bumblebees are able to pollinate a variety of plants thanks to this variation. The large size and distinctive buzzing vibration of the bees allow them to shake pollen from plants like blueberries and tomatoes that would otherwise be difficult to access.

In other words, bumblebees have a huuge impact on food production. Their decline would mean difficult times for the human race.