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posted by on Wednesday February 08 2017, @11:52PM   Printer-friendly
from the better-than-revenge-stinging dept.

A new study into honey bees has revealed the significant effect human impact has on a bee's metabolism, and ultimately its survival.

Researchers from The University of Western Australia in collaboration with Kings Park and Botanic Garden, Curtin University and CSIRO have completed a world-first study on insect metabolism in free flying insects, focusing on the honey bee. The study funded by an Australian Research Council linkage award has revealed the significant effect human impact on the environment had on bees, which are crucial for the planet, pollinating one-third of everything we eat.

Landscapes that have been degraded mean a reduction in the availability of resources which affects the metabolic rate of the honey bee and puts more strain on its body's ability to function.

Emeritus Professor Don Bradshaw from UWA's School of Biological Sciences said the researchers wanted to find out how honey bees' metabolism was impacted by human made changes to the environment such as clearing of land.

To do this they used a unique method to measure the energy expenditure of bees, originally developed by Professor Bradshaw and used in his research on honey possums. Through this method they were able to measure the metabolic rate of bees when they are in their natural environment, and compare pristine environments rich in resources to degraded environments.


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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 09 2017, @12:33AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 09 2017, @12:33AM (#464827)

    The article never actually defines what a degraded environment is. The closest it comes is this statement:

    "The metabolic rate of bees in natural woodland was actually significantly higher than in a degraded environment"

  • (Score: 4, Informative) by requerdanos on Thursday February 09 2017, @12:52AM

    by requerdanos (5997) Subscriber Badge on Thursday February 09 2017, @12:52AM (#464831) Journal

    The article never actually defines what a degraded environment is.

    Well, there's also "Landscapes that have been degraded mean a reduction in the availability of resources... by human made changes to the environment such as clearing of land." from TFS. HTH.

  • (Score: 2) by HiThere on Thursday February 09 2017, @01:05AM

    by HiThere (866) Subscriber Badge on Thursday February 09 2017, @01:05AM (#464834) Journal

    From the article:
    Landscapes that have been degraded mean a reduction in the availability of resources which affects the metabolic rate of the honey bee and puts more strain on its body's ability to function.

    That's not a very exact definition to my eyes, it would seem to mean something like "there are fewer flowers around". Perhaps to a specialist it would be more precise. Or perhaps that's what he thought the reporter would understand. (Or what the reporter or editor thought the audience would understand. That isn't put as a quote.)

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    • (Score: 4, Interesting) by bzipitidoo on Thursday February 09 2017, @05:35AM

      by bzipitidoo (4388) on Thursday February 09 2017, @05:35AM (#464883) Journal

      "Clearing the land" is in the article as one example of "human made changes to the environment". It specifically mentioned that the research compared bee foraging in woodland to degraded land. Presumably one meaning of degraded is recently cleared of trees.

      Would be interesting if they could also check bee foraging on land that had been recently cleared by a forest fire or a volcanic eruption.

      • (Score: 3, Insightful) by art guerrilla on Thursday February 09 2017, @12:01PM

        by art guerrilla (3082) on Thursday February 09 2017, @12:01PM (#464954)

        as the others, the definition of cleared land was not, um, clear...
        for example, our 10 acres are so overgrown with trees (which i am in the middle of a drastic thinning out project), that it is NOT hospitable to wildlife... deep, dark, dense forests are not good habitat for most wildlife, only a few specialists (of macro species) can thrive in such conditions... since we don't let wildfires run wild, the regular and natural method of clearing out saplings and underbrush does not happen... therefore, the 'specimen' trees get surrounded with small trees which grow up like 60' matchsticks, then when/if a fire does come through, it burns down all the large specimen trees too (not to mention our house), rather than just clear out the underbrush and potential competing saplings and put some valuable bio-char back in the system...
        NO DOUBT the area we had cleared around the house and for the garden has regrown tons of 'weeds' and various flowering species which are otherwise smothered out in a dense forest environment... that area is teeming with bugs and birds and wildlife compared to the denser forest next to it... dense forests are generally not good sources of flowering plants, etc that most species ultimately depend on...
        in fact, 'disturbed' areas are often more productive for flowering plants and the bugs/critters which depend upon them...
        so, yeah, 'cleared' in one context can mean scraped down to the dead dirt and effectively 'dead', or it can mean dense stands of trees have been removed such that a whole other environment and panoply of flowering plants can pop up to support wildlife much better than the static, overgrown forest...

    • (Score: 2) by Bogsnoticus on Thursday February 09 2017, @06:52AM

      by Bogsnoticus (3982) on Thursday February 09 2017, @06:52AM (#464900)

      How about "where humans have FUBARed the environment through excessive land clearing and deforestation due to mining, logging, settlement, or insectacide-heavy farming"?

      That's what I first thought of when I read "degraded environment".

      --
      Genius by birth. Evil by choice.
      • (Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 09 2017, @08:19AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 09 2017, @08:19AM (#464917)

        I thought it was letting Runaway1956, khallow, jmorris, and that Nazi guy post all over the place, until honey bees, who always recognize Royalty and Jupiter Ascending (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jupiter_Ascending), all go and kill themselves over the repeated and constant irredemiable stupidity of the SoylentNews right. This is why we have no bees here, my fellow Soylentils! We have allowed SoylentNews to be ravaged by anti-sweetness trolls. I would have included The Buzz, but he actually does something useful once in a while, and his name, properly shortened, sounds like bees. Maybe if he were to become royalty, or at least more noble, like, liberal? the bees might come back. And we could all be pollinated again. Think about this, all you MRA types: guilt free pollination, with no worries about child support or having a hypodermic the size of Runaway's penis injected into you, anywhere. (Though, actually: mosquito bite? Who's worrying?).

      • (Score: 2) by HiThere on Thursday February 09 2017, @07:34PM

        by HiThere (866) Subscriber Badge on Thursday February 09 2017, @07:34PM (#465197) Journal

        Yes, that's a quite plausible meaning, but even that needs to be made more explicit if you want the study to have any meaning. But this was a report in a "popular science" article on the web, it wasn't the actual report. So you're probably right about what they meant, it's just that it's quite plausible to argue for some other interpretation, also.

        FWIW, sometimes land that looks degraded to humans doesn't look at all degraded to some other animals. Often land that looks improved to humans looks extremely degraded to many other animals. For bees I would guess that it has to do with the availability of flowers, but it could also have to do with their seasonal growth patterns, or the presence of ordors that hid those of the flowers, or something else. The article doesn't really specify. My guess is that they don't want their audience to have to think about details, so they don't give them the details to think about.

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        Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.