Protecting Britain’s bumblebees
Foreign bumblebees being imported to the UK to help pollinate crops could also carry parasites and viruses which pose a risk to native bees.
Leeds researchers are looking into which parasites might be arriving and assessing the risk they present to our already vulnerable bee population.
Bumblebees are crucial for pollinating food crops and wildlife but nearly half the UK’s 25 species are already extinct and many of those remaining are in decline. Maintaining a diversity of bee species is essential for maintaining plant diversity. Crops grown in glasshouses, open-ended poly tunnels and – like strawberries – open fields depend on bumblebees for pollination so 60,000 colonies are imported each year to meet the demand. Most of the major bee breeding companies are based in Europe. Honeybees in the UK and US have already been affected by diseases imported by foreign bees and there is concern for the bumblebee.
“We know remarkably little about the diversity of parasites in bumblebees. There is some screening for the three main known ones but there are almost certainly many others, such as viruses, that are important and which we haven’t yet identified. Our native bumblebees can probably cope with the parasites already found in the UK but they could be overwhelmed by new diseases they haven’t yet adapted to,” says Dr Bill Hughes from the Institute of Integrative and Comparative Biology.
In a three year Natural Environment Research Council (NERC)- funded study PhD student Pete Graystock will screen native and foreign bumblebees as using advanced molecular techniques to identify parasite DNA. They will also investigate the affects of parasites on bee health.
The research, co-supervised by Professor Dave Goulson and Dr Ben Darvil co-founders of the Bumblebee Conservation Trust, will be used to inform conservation strategies and potentially improve screening for imported bees.
A separate, NERC-funded study led by Dr Hughes is investigating if queen honeybees who ‘play the field’ by having a variety of male partners could be the key to keeping their offspring disease-free. “Given the choice, queen bees will often mate with up to 12 different males in a matter of minutes,” he explains.
It’s possible the loss of honeybees means that the number and variety of potential mates for a queen is becoming too low to main genetic diversity and therefore disease-resistant populations. Dr Hughes and his team think infections from hidden parasites in genetically susceptible bees may be combining with other factors to produce a lethal cocktail which overwhelms their defences.
Read more about the study into genetic resistance at www.leeds.ac.uk/news
