The insecticide chlorpyrifos is not just highly toxic to developing human foetuses. A new study finds that it also damages the memory and learning ability of Forager bees even at very low doses, threatening the survival of this important pollinator.
… 'may threaten survival' of Forager bees The Ecologist | 11th March 2016 News Bees Toxics Pesticides Ecology Farming New … the memory and learning ability of Forager bees even at very low doses, threatening the …
A warming climate and the loss of natural areas are driving Indian bee colonies to the brink, writes Premila Krishnan. Losing this cousin of our European honeybee could be disastrous, as rural communities depend on their honey for food and income, and the bees perform vital pollination services.
… Climate change is killing off India’s bees Pramila Krishnan | 1st March 2016 News Climate Change India Bees Biodiversity Ecology bee-hive-cut.jpg A … on their honey for food and income, and the bees perform vital pollination services. A …
Our bees and wider farmland ecosystems have been seriously harmed by neonicotinoids, writes Dave Goulson. But that's just the start of the damage that modern farming is doing to wildlife in a countryside stripped of wild flowers and drenched by cocktails of pesticides. The problem is not just neonics, but the entire model of industrial agriculture.
… If modern farming can't sustain bees, how much longer can it sustain us? Dave … UK Toxics bumblebee-clover-cut.jpg Our bees and wider farmland ecosystems have been … doses of these chemicals, such as bees would be exposed to if they fed on a …
An exotic parasite is spreading through the world's honey bees and global warming is making it worse, writes Robert Paxton. A new study that shows it will soon be causing widespread colony collapse in North America and Europe.
… is spreading through the world's honey bees and global warming is making it worse, … risk, especially as summers become warmer. Bees are fairly used to parasites. A native … was found a decade later in western honey bees (the species native to Europe) in Spain, …
Widespread use of insecticides affecting bee populations but also causing decline in numbers of birds, butterflies and moths, warns Dutch toxicologist
… Levitt | 16th November 2010 News Pesticides Bees Birds Ecology Natural World Food And … bee numbers across Europe. He now believes bees are not the only victims. ‘Any insect … for worldwide food security, because bees are our most important pollinators and …
A new study shows it's not just neonicotinoids that impair bees' ability to navigate to nectar and pollen sources, and to their nests: now the herbicide glyphosate has been found to have the same impact even at very low levels.
… Glyphosate harms bees' spatial learning Beyond Pesticides | … it's not just neonicotinoids that impair bees' ability to navigate to nectar and pollen … pointing to toxic and sublethal effects on bees. According to a new study conducted by …
Bee 'colony collapse disorder' cannot be ended by easy technofixes, writes Allan Stromfeldt Christensen. The real problem is the systematic abuse of bees in vast industrial monocultures, as they are trucked or flown thousands of miles from one farm to the next, treated with insecticides and antibiotics, and fed on 'junk food'.
… The real problem is the systematic abuse of bees in vast industrial monocultures, as they … have suggested in various ways that if honeybees go the way of the dodo bird, so do us … situation. First off is the fact that honeybees are used to pollinate about one-third of …
A study published today in Nature shows a strong correlation between concentrations of a popular neonicotinoid pesticide in water, and bird declines, writes Helen Thompson. Regulators are under pressure to tighten up, but the industry still claims there's 'no substantiated evidence'.
… It's not just the bees! 'Neonic' pesticides linked to bird … Let me tell you about the birds and the bees: A family of pesticides called … published in Nature suggests that birds and bees may share a common enemy. Dutch …
The widespread use of neonicotinoid insecticides is causing a neurotoxic overload afflicting entire farm ecosystems from earthworms to bees, other pollinators and birds, writes Damian Carrington. A collapse in food production may inevitably follow.
… July 2014 News Farming Ecology Toxics Science bees-oilseed-cut.jpg The widespread use of … entire farm ecosystems from earthworms to bees, other pollinators and birds, writes … essential to global food production - from bees to earthworms - are likely to be …
Decades of regular mowing left my front lawn looking bare and sterile, writes Jo Cartmell. But in fact, the exhausted, infertile soil made it the perfect place for a host of wild flowers to take up residence - some from planted seed, others blown-in, or from long buried seed lying dormant in the soil. And after that, the butterflies ...
… thought of the butterflies and wild bees that depended upon them. They were woven … chirring away and the contented buzz of bees collecting pollen and nectar - the sound … their son had learnt all about the plight of bees at his school and wanted to transform …
Although sea walls are a strong form of coastal defence they effectively wipe out rock pools which are important oases for marine life. Scientists in Sydney have found a solution involving flower pots...
… companies are both breeding and killing bees Agri-chemical companies like Syngenta … that have been blamed for the decline in bees; they also breed the bees that are being used as a replacement for …
Insect pollinators that have survived the impacts of agricultural intensification may have a greater ability to resist future environmental changes than previously thought, MARIANNE BROOKER reports
… reports Pollination by insects, particularly bees , is vital to food production and humans … and visits to plants by pollinators such as bees, hoverflies and butterflies. The latter …
It looked like such a good idea: take the pressure off wild fish stocks by growing GM oilseeds that produce health-enhancing long-chain omega-3 fatty acids, writes Claire Robinson. But as a new study has established, those fish oils, novel in terrestrial ecosystems, cause wing deformities in cabbage white butterflies. Yet a third open field trial of these GM crops could soon be under way.
… insects such as non-pest butterflies, bees, and other pollinators. It is also not … butterflies, pest predators, parasites, bees, and pollinators. Concerned scientists … butterflies, pest predators, parasites, bees, and pollinators. We have been calling …
Mussels, crabs, hornets and ... racoons? Future invasive species are not what you might expect, write Jodey Peyton & Helen Roy. In particular, we have to beware of 'ecosystem engineers' that can transform the environment they inhabit, creating ecological havoc for other species.
… of pollinating insects including honeybees, and is anticipated to arrive in Great …
Even if you love Himalayan balsam, it has surely become too much of a good thing as it takes over Britain's wetlands and riverbanks. But now it's facing a major setback - the deliberate introduction of a parasitic rust fungus from its native range in the mountains of Asia.
… And it is a rich source of nectar for bees and other pollinators when there's few …
In its purist form, drawing is marking down the junctions of observed lines. The Ecology Movement does the same thing - joining up the dots of our under-strain, but interlinked environment to create forceful arguments, writes Ecologist Arts Editor, GARY COOK
… creates delicately detailed studies of bees and plants. She is entranced by the cycle …
A new and deceptively sophisticated installation is about artists, audience and nature itself connecting in real time, writes Laurence Rose, who visited a Living Symphony in Thetford Forest.
Living symphonies in the forest Laurence Rose | 6th June 2014 Reviews Forests Arts UK Ecology fs-web-cut.jpg A new and deceptively sophisticated installation is about artists, audience and nature …
Fire is an essential part of the life-cycle of the forests of the American West, writes George Wuerthner, and the complex, biodiverse habitat that burning creates sustains hundreds of species that cannot survive without it. So please - no more talk of forests 'recovering' after fire - OK?
… the ground, they are invaded by wood-living bees and wasps that will pollinate the new …
The National Farmers Union has been issuing dire warnings that if UK taxpayers do not keep on paying landowners billions of pounds of annual subsidies after Brexit, many will simply give up farming altogether. So, asks CHRISTOPHER SANDOM, how would our countryside change if they followed through on that threat? (Or was it a promise?)
… partridge, skylark, lapwing, as well as many bees and butterflies, would find fewer places …
Thanks to herbicide use on GMO crops in the US and Canada, Monarch butterfly numbers have crashed - the milkweeds the larvae feed on now survive mainly in 'conservation reserve' land and roadsides - and there's a 5% chance the Monarch will be extinct within 100 years.
… and roadsides would help. Pollinators such as bees and butterflies are in serious decline, …
Bark beetles are invariably presented as terrible, forest killing pests, writes Chad Hanson. But in truth forest biodiversity depends on them to create the snags for insects to burrow in, woodpeckers to feed off, and countless birds and even pine martens to nest in. So when you hear politicians calling for bark beetle 'salvage' logging, send them off with a flea in the ear!
… The flowers attract native flying insects - bees, wasps, butterflies and moths - which in …
Humanity is continuing to drive species into extinction at a terrifying rate, writes Robert J. Burrowes - not just nameless beetles and midges, but mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, fish and trees. The biggest causes are habitat destruction, pollution and hunting ... and unless we stop soon, we too will be among the victims of our ecocidal attack on Earth.
… kill many of the beneficial insects, such as bees, that play a part in plant pollination …
Evolution may be a brilliant model by which to explain the diversity of the natural world, but it doesn't contain the slightest hint as to how human beings should act towards that world
… alien these organisms [i. e. cats, dogs, bees or zebrafish] seem to you, Darwin’s …
Bhaskar Save, the 'Gandhi of natural farming', died last year after a lifetime of organic growing and determined campaigning against the destruction of India's traditional, sustainable agriculture, writes Colin Todhunter. His 2006 open letter, published here, sets out a devastating critique of industrial agriculture and its impacts, and an eloquent and timely agroecological manifesto.
… beneficial species like the earthworms and bees. Agribusiness and technocrats recommended …