Warmer and wetter weather linked to climate change appears to be stressing bumblebees and making their wings more asymmetrical, which could ultimately affect their future evolution, British scientists say in new research.
“With hotter and wetter conditions predicted to put greater stress on bumblebees, the fact that these conditions will become more common under climate change means that bumblebees are dying in the 21 Journal of Animal Ecology on Wednesday.
Known for their distinctive buzzing, the large fur bees feed only on flowers, making them vulnerable to landscape changes due to intensive farming.
According to the Bumblebee Conservation Trust, their population has declined in Britain over the last century, with two species becoming extinct.
Imperial College scientists studied more than 6,000 bumblebee specimens in natural history museums collected across Britain in the 20th century.
The scientists examined the right-left symmetry between the bee’s four wings, because asymmetry is an indication that the insect experienced stress during development.
They found that bees from the second half of the 20th century consistently had a higher average rate of asymmetry.
The asymmetry was also “consistently higher in warmer and wetter years,” according to Richard Gill, senior co-author of the study.
“Taken together, these results may indicate that bumblebees have experienced increased stress over the century and that aspects of climate change may have contributed to this trend,” the paper says.
The weather conditions associated with wobbly wings “are likely to become more common with climate change,” she continued.
In April, scientists in the United States studying more than 20,000 bees in the Rocky Mountains found that bumblebees have lower heat tolerance than smaller bees and are “more threatened than other bees under global warming.”
Insects face tremendous impacts from both the warming climate and intensive farming.
Another study published in April in the journal Nature found that these factors are causing insect populations to decline by nearly half compared to areas less affected by temperature increases and industrial agriculture.
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