Related Experiment Video
Updated: Dec 29, 2025

Empirical, Metagenomic, and Computational Techniques Illuminate the Mechanisms by which Fungicides Compromise Bee Health
Published on: October 9, 2017
Climate change contributes to widespread declines among bumble bees across continents
Peter Soroye1, Tim Newbold2, Jeremy Kerr3
1Department of Biology, University of Ottawa, Ottawa, ON K1N 6N5, Canada. peter.soroye@gmail.com.
Abstract:
Climate change could increase species' extinction risk as temperatures and precipitation begin to exceed species' historically observed tolerances. Using long-term data for 66 bumble bee species across North America and Europe, we tested whether this mechanism altered likelihoods of bumble bee species' extinction or colonization. Increasing frequency of hotter temperatures predicts species' local extinction risk, chances of colonizing a new area, and changing species richness. Effects are independent of changing land uses. The method developed in this study permits spatially explicit predictions of climate change-related population extinction-colonization dynamics within species that explains observed patterns of geographical range loss and expansion across continents. Increasing frequencies of temperatures that exceed historically observed tolerances help explain widespread bumble bee species decline. This mechanism may also contribute to biodiversity loss more generally.
Related Concept Videos
Threats to Biodiversity
Global Climate Change
Conservation of Declining Populations
Migration
Pollination and Flower Structure
What is Climate?

