Impact of climate change and drought threat on the honey bees food collection
Contact us if these videos are not relevant.
Contact us if these videos are not relevant.
View abstract on PubMed
Summary
This summary is machine-generated.Climate change and drought risk significantly impact honey bee food collection. Bees in high-drought-risk areas showed less hive weight gain due to hotter, drier conditions, threatening pollinator populations.
Area Of Science
- Ecology
- Environmental Science
- Entomology
Background
- Climate change and increasing drought frequency threaten vital pollinators like honey bees (Apis mellifera L.).
- Drought conditions impact insect food resources and foraging behavior.
- Understanding these impacts is crucial for conservation efforts.
Purpose Of The Study
- To analyze the effect of drought risk and changing climate on honey bee food collection.
- To compare honey bee apiaries in areas with high (DR) and low (NDR) drought risk.
- To assess the influence of climate parameters on hive weight changes.
Main Methods
- Data from 60 apiaries in Poland (2018, 2019, 2022) were analyzed.
- Hive scale parameters (weight changes, temperature, humidity) were monitored.
- Generalized Linear Mixed Models (GLMM) were used to compare DR and NDR classes.
Main Results
- Significant differences in climate parameters were found between DR and NDR apiaries.
- DR apiaries experienced higher temperatures and lower humidity.
- During peak drought months (July-August), DR apiaries showed significantly smaller hive weight increases compared to NDR apiaries.
Conclusions
- Drought risk and associated climate conditions negatively affect honey bee foraging and food collection.
- Mitigation strategies are essential, including landscape enrichment with drought-tolerant plants and water resource management.
- Monitoring climate change impacts on pollinators is critical for ecosystem health.
Contact us if these videos are not relevant.
Contact us if these videos are not relevant.
Related Concept Videos
Climate refers to the prevailing weather conditions in a specific area over an extended period. As the saying goes, “Climate is what you expect. Weather is what you get.” Climate is influenced by geographic factors, such as latitude, terrain, and proximity to bodies of water.
Weather and Climate
Weather and climate are related, though they differ in terms of time scale and predictability. Weather refers to the state of the atmosphere at a specific time and place, whereas climate...
There have been five major extinction events throughout geological history, resulting in the elimination of biodiversity, followed by a rebound of species that adapted to the new conditions. In the current geological epoch, the Holocene, there is a sixth extinction event in progress. This mass extinction has been attributed to human activities and is thus provisionally called the Anthropocene. In 2019 the human population reached 7.7 billion people and is projected to comprise 10 billion by...
Water plays a significant role in the life cycle of plants. However, insufficient or excess of water can be detrimental and pose a serious threat to plants.
Under normal conditions, water taken up by the plant evaporates from leaves and other parts in a process called transpiration. In times of drought stress, water that evaporates by transpiration far exceeds the water absorbed from the soil, causing plants to wilt. The general plant response to drought stress is the synthesis of hormone...
Throughout its ~4.5 billion year history, the Earth has experienced periods of warming and cooling. However, the current drastic increase in global temperatures is well outside of the Earth’s cyclic norms, and evidence for human-caused global climate change is compelling. Paleoclimatology, the study of ancient climate conditions, provides ample evidence for human-caused global climate change by comparing recent conditions with those in the past.
Past Periods of Warming and Cooling
In...
Migration is long-range, seasonal movement from one region or habitat to another. This common strategy, carried out by many different organisms around the world, is an adaptive response that typically corresponds to changes in an organism’s environment, like resource availability or climate. Migrations can involve huge groups of thousands of animals as well as single individuals traveling alone and can range from thousands of kilometers to just a few hundred meters.
Why Animals Migrate
Though evaporation from plant leaves drives transpiration, it also results in loss of water. Because water is critical for photosynthetic reactions and other cellular processes, evolutionary pressures on plants in different environments have driven the acquisition of adaptations that reduce water loss.
In land plants, the uppermost cell layer of a plant leaf, called the epidermis, is coated with a waxy substance called the cuticle. This hydrophobic layer is composed of the polymer cutin and...