Rising CO2 Levels May Contribute to Die-Off of Bees

http://e360.yale.edu/feature/bee_collapse_co2_climate_change_agriculture/2991/

by jdnier • 10 years ago

100 56 10 years ago

e360.yale.edu

jdnier5• 10 years ago

Increasing CO2 levels alter plant physiology and significantly reduce protein in pollen. "...scientists testing the pollen content from goldenrod collected between 1842 and 2014, when atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide rose from about 280 parts per million to 398 ppm, found the most recent pollen samples contained 30 percent less protein."

brianlweiner• 10 years ago

Does anyone know if it's possible that crops producing increased yields correspondingly produce pollen with decreased protein?

bjelkeman-again5• 10 years ago

The most exposed bees are solitary bees and bumble bees, even though the issues with honey bees seems to be written about more in the press.

It is relatively easy as an individual to give the bees a helping hand. One can buy or build a so called bee hotel [1]. It helps the bees with nesting site locations. When sited it requires essentially zero effort but supports the bees and other insects.

One can also become a honey bee keeper, but it requires more effort. It is quite fascinating though. You can read about our efforts. [2]

[1] http://www.arkinspace.com/2012/06/welcome-to-bee-hotel.html

[2] https://beginnerbeekeepers.wordpress.com

deelowe• 10 years ago

I have those, except they're called "facia boards."

TheBeardKing• 10 years ago

I'm with you. My shed is a carpenter bee hotel.

jdnier5• 10 years ago

This is a commercial site, but they do a lot of education work and have lots of good info on their site:

http://crownbees.com/learn-mason-bees

I bought two starter tubes of blue orchard mason bees four years ago. Last year, I collected 100 filled tubes (natural reeds) of bees. Crown Bees recommends not using holes drilled in lumber because they're not very reusable and can spread disease (can't be cleaned). The bees seem to like natural reeds the best. I store my bees in their tubes in the fridge in a humidified box during the winter months, and harvest the tubes in April. I split open the tubes and collect and inspect the cocoons. Each tube can have 8-10 cocoons, although some fail completely. The population can grow very quickly when you care for them this way.

rihegher• 10 years ago

I'm living in south west of France where there is more and more of these insects hotels. Thing is, every time I pass by one of it I can't see any insect at all. Maybe it's because the weather was still cold on those times. Still every time I can't help wondering if it's really works as expected.

bjelkeman-again5• 10 years ago

The insect hotel would generally contain more cocoons with larvae during the autumn and winter, when they stay longer. I saw some the other days that had two dozen or so insects cocoons per "hotel". I have heard of a guy with one of these on the seventh floor in a suburb, which had lots of use.

jdnier5• 10 years ago

Each bee species is different. Blue mason bees, for example, are only active for 3-4 weeks when the first flowers appear, then they die. It's a pretty incredible life cycle: 11 months developing from egg -> larva-> then spin cocoon-> finally a few weeks to forage for pollen and lay their own eggs. There are many species of native bee with short cycles like this. The native bees you see in April will be different than the bees in June, different than in August.

ageofwant2• 10 years ago

I can report that mine is about 2/3's occupied. Its a bit hard to tell if a single tube has been abandoned or the larvae has failed though. I've been considering making a bug hotel with a camera or the like to monitor that.

Putting up bug hotels are quite popular:

http://bushblitz.org.au/all-abuzz-about-new-bush-blitz-bee-h... http://www.sgaonline.org.au/insect-hotels/

eplanit• 10 years ago

"One can buy or build a so called bee hotel"

In the Sharing Economy you can also use Air-Bee-n-Bee?

(sorry, couldn't resist)

jly2• 10 years ago

> It is relatively easy as an individual to give the bees a helping hand.

You can also choose to NOT spray harmful chemicals on your lawn/garden/landscaping. As a hobby beekeeper in a suburban area, I appreciate it when my bees are not bringing this junk back to their hive and my honey!

barney54• 10 years ago

Do you share you honey with your neighbors as a way of encouraging them to not use chemicals on their lawns and yards?

hueving• 10 years ago

This actually brings up an interesting property discussion. Normally it's pretty clear when someone is doing something on their property that harms the environment of other people's property (e.g. releasing gases, etc).

In this particular case, it's your bees that are going onto the neighbors property and bringing back chemicals. Clearly you can't control the bees (unless you encase them in a dome) so it's not quite analogous to letting a dog roam around the neighborhood...

I'm very curious what would happen if e.g. you tried to sue your neighbor for harming your bees.

ssmoot• 10 years ago

As a side note:

I'm not a botanist or anything. This is just what I've read. But I remember growing up there being clover everywhere. It was vibrant, green, felt great under foot and flourished even in South Texas.

You don't see that often anymore. The claim I've seen is that herbicides commonly used to treat weeds on lawns kill it.

So I bought a couple 1lb bags off Amazon (I think about $10). We had a few weeds since we don't use herbicides (not out of principle or anything, I'm just not that into gardening). Anyways, the clover chokes out the weeds completely, looks great, seems to help the grass grow better, and is just nothing but a positive thing.

Really happy with it. Some of my super-gardener neighbors might not appreciate it. It's never come up. But I like that even during droughts my lawn stays vibrant and green with minimal water.

hissworks• 10 years ago

You can also let dandelions grow rather than kill them off with weedkiller.

When dandelions are in bloom they attract and sustain many types of bees and other insects.

http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/gardening-blog/2015/...

rwmj• 10 years ago

Also dandelions are good (and free!) eating. Never kill off dandelions.

enraged_camel• 10 years ago

This is going to be a very ignorant question, but... how do you make sure these bee hotels don't attract pests such as cockroaches?

bjelkeman-again5• 10 years ago

Bees will attract pests, so you have to deal with it. The key threats here are: mice (restrict access during winter), birds (some people use netting during winter), bears (not where we are), hornets, ants (restrict access), but the most important pest is the varroa mite. There are several effective of none-pesticide methods, here are some: http://www.waldeneffect.org/blog/Treating_varroa_mites_organ...

devy• 10 years ago

   The study itself concluded that the decline 
   of plant proteins in the face of soaring carbon 
   dioxide concentrations provides an “urgent and 
   compelling case” for CO2 sensitivity in pollen 
   and other plant components.

I wonder if that pollen with significantly reduced protein would also affects human allergy, as it's very common these days. (Not sure if were common a few decades ago, but I am skeptical.)

Love to hear someone with expertise in this to chime in.

ageofwant2• 10 years ago

People have noted correlations between climate change and allergy increase: http://fightthecauseofallergy.org/page/climate-change-and-al...

ars• 10 years ago

That would be backwards then. Less protein means less allergy not more.

Of course it's trendy to blame absolutely everything on climate change, even contradictory things, so.........

tptacek2• 10 years ago

I ask/say this in every honey bee thread:

My understanding is that feral honey bees have been extinct in North America for a long time (since the 1980s?), and that they're an introduced species. The logic then goes: if you see a honey bee flying around outside, it at some point belonged to a honey bee keeper.

I'm also of the impression that (a) the costs for pollination services haven't shot up in conjunction with colony collapse disorder (CCD), and that CCD is defined in terms of an increase in colonies that fail to overwinter. It's not, the logic goes, as if all the honey bee colonies fail; they just seem to be more fragile.

There's also a market for queens to start new colonies with, and my understanding was that the market for these queens hasn't gotten crazy in response to CCD.

I think I got a bunch of this stuff from EconTalk a few years ago, in an interview with a "honey bee economist".

Are these assumptions still valid?

jly2• 10 years ago

> My understanding is that feral honey bees have been extinct in North America for a long time (since the 1980s?), and that they're an introduced species. The logic then goes: if you see a honey bee flying around outside, it at some point belonged to a honey bee keeper.

I don't believe this is the case, meaning not all feral bees are escaped swarms, although many may be. See this for more (a lot more) information: http://scientificbeekeeping.com/whats-happening-to-the-bees-...

> I'm also of the impression that (a) the costs for pollination services haven't shot up in conjunction with colony collapse disorder (CCD), and that CCD is defined in terms of an increase in colonies that fail to overwinter. It's not, the logic goes, as if all the honey bee colonies fail; they just seem to be more fragile.

I can't comment on the price of pollination services, but I don't believe CCD is defined solely as 'failing to overwinter', implying the bees starve or were otherwise ill prepared during a period of dearth. CCD is typically defined as a general failure of the hive in the presence of adequate environment, seen by absconding or dying off. Honeybees have been so well studied over the last 10 years or so with the advent of CCD that the phenomenon is much better understood. Many experts today believe it is caused by a combination of continually more unnatural beekeeping practices, for example the continued feeding of non-honey sugar sources, monoculture crops, chemicals used in agriculture, forcing the bees to reuse comb indefinitely, etc.

> There's also a market for queens to start new colonies with, and my understanding was that the market for these queens hasn't gotten crazy in response to CCD.

I buy queens for non-commercial beekeeping and I haven't seen any observable difference in my area. They are not difficult to breed with adequate resources.

Qworg3• 10 years ago

You are correct RE: CCD. It actually doesn't show up as "failure to overwinter" ever.

fleitz• 10 years ago

Yes, many bees ARE dying, however, new bees are being created at a faster rate so while more bees are dying, we also have more bees than ever before.

Qworg3• 10 years ago

The costs of pollination services were extremely high for almonds last time I checked three years ago. Whether this is due to CCD or some other factors is unknown. The commercial keepers I spoke with were definitely raising prices and worried about their restocking ability/costs.

phkahler• 10 years ago

> How Rising CO2 Levels May Contribute to Die-Off of Bees

And teen pregnancy. You know with all the warming they're more tempted to take their clothes off.

It's interesting that TFA also points out that increased CO2 makes the starchy parts of the plant grow faster, which is why the percentage of protein is lower. CO2 - good for plants.

pbreit• 10 years ago

I've been hearing that bees were dying off my entire 46 year life. Is there ever anything to such reports?

JoeAltmaier• 10 years ago

Beekeepers will build new hives as the old ones die off. Yes its been going on for decades. Its expensive in time and labor and reduces honey yield by a big fraction.

A new queen can be created at will with the right technique, so little danger of the bees disappearing forever. But imagine if you lost a third of your fruit crop every year. You'd want to get to the bottom of it.

mkesper• 10 years ago

The same is also not true for feral bees, they do the biggest part of the pollination but do have no professional caretakers.

codecamper• 10 years ago

Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall, Humpty Dumpty had a great fall. All the king's horses and all the king's men Couldn't put Humpty together again.

zevkirsh• 10 years ago

rising c02 may ( fill in the blank here)

there is epidemic of bad science resulting from overfunding for anything related to c02 research.

it's nonsense. it's not 'wrong' because 'wrong' is falsifiable in one direction or another it's BAD science because it is inconclusive wasted effort with crap data and nothing verifiable.

fine, believe in the immanent global catastrophic VERSION of climate warming caused and potentially preventable by mankind resulting from c02 emissions. GO AHEAD AND PULL YOUR HAIR OUT. BUT CAN WE PLEASE STOP FUNDING CRAP ASS SCIENCE RESEARCH THAT WAS NEVER INTENDED TO YIELD CONCLUSIVE FALSIFIABLE RESULTS OTHER THAN X MAY CAUSE Y , OR IT MAY NOT.............

THE CULT OF BAD SCIENCE ..........AND PSUEDOSCIENCE..........continues...........

yongjik• 10 years ago

Google search for "may contribute to" (with quotes) yields:

Cartilage protein may contribute to the development of breast cancer
Zinc deficiency may contribute to increased inflammation among HIV-positive individuals
Neurotrophine-3 may contribute to neuronal differentiation of mesenchymal stem cells through the activation of the bone morphogenetic protein pathway.

...and thousands of others.

Do you object to all of them for being "CRAP ASS SCIENCE RESEARCH THAT WAS NEVER INTENDED TO YIELD CONCLUSIVE FALSIFIABLE RESULTS OTHER THAN X MAY CAUSE Y", or do you only object to those with political implications regarding fossil fuel industry?

douche• 10 years ago

I object - I can't even begin to keep straight whether I'm supposed to eat eggs or run in fear of them, or whether blueberries prevent cancer or if antioxidants give you mega-uber-cancer this week.

beachy• 10 years ago

I find climate change very depressing, though I'm a complete believer in it. So I normally welcome any debunking of articles like this, since its good to know things aren't as bad as they could be.

But your debunking is not useful. Capitals are unpleasant to read and imply someone ranting/unhinged. You don't seem to actually address anything specific in TFA. You allege there is an epidemic of bad science but provide no links or backup to your claims.

vixen99• 10 years ago

A complete believer? Welcome to the Church of CAGW! It has to be 'Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming' because no 'denialists' deny the fact that carbon dioxide produced by humans helps the atmosphere retain more of the sun's heat. That's not up for belief; it's a fact. The question is: to what extent and what is the nature of the relationship? We do not yet know the answer.

nikdaheratik2• 10 years ago

I don't think you understand how research works. Unless you have a super no-strings research grant (e.g. Nobel award or something), the expensive gold-standard research you're asking for just isn't funded in the first round. Instead, you get funded to do lower standard correlation type research first then if that pans out, you report on it and apply for the higher standard one to completely prove/disprove your theory.

But if all caps helps you get that inner rage against how science works out, then shine on I suppose.

beedogs• 10 years ago

So does the cult of caps lock, apparently. This reads like an email my crazy uncle would forward me.

gd1• 10 years ago

Well said.

Just another piece of shit for the warmlist.

http://www.numberwatch.co.uk/warmlist.htm

nkurz• 10 years ago

An interesting study, and I find it surprising that goldenrod (a classic "weed") would do worse under higher CO2 when most plants thrive. Generally, low CO2 is worse for plant growth, and indoor gardeners sometimes intentionally boost the CO2 level for higher yields.

The paper asserts that the protein content of goldenrod pollen goes down as CO2 concentration rises. Since bees depend on goldenrod pollen for protein, implication is that higher CO2 is bad for bees. As evidence, they point to both pollen collected when CO2 levels were lower, as well as pollen collected from plants grown under controlled CO2 conditions.

Maybe when exposed to high CO2, the goldenrod produces more pollen, but with a lower protein percentage, similar to the way that water stress can result in fruit with higher sugar concentrations? Plausible, but the paper seems to say no: "S. canadensis biomass production was not correlated with Ca for either year (p=0.26 and 0.87 in 2012 and 2014, respectively)." I'm assuming they are giving the p-value for "is correlated" and using it's high value as evidence of "not correlated", but I'm not sure because they don't give the actual data or cite an outside source here.

So what's happening here? Why doesn't goldenrod thrive with increasing CO2? Well, maybe the issue is that something else thrives better, and crowds out the goldenrod? Mentioned in the paper is that the study site represents a number of species representative of highgrass prairie. In two of the sites, the goldenrod was outcompeted regardless of CO2, but in one of them (the high clay "Austin" soil) both the goldenrod (Solidago canadensis) and indiangrass (Sorghastrum nutans) were codominant.

That's about all the information given in this paper, but digging deeper into earlier studies we find more relevant information. Earlier studies show that in the presence of higher CO2, the total biomass on the Austin/clay soil increases dramatically. Estimating from figure 3B here (http://digitalcommons.unl.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=14...) it looks like the biomass goes from about 200 g/m^2 to 300 g/m^2 as the CO2 goes from 300 ppm to 500 ppm.

More interestingly, in that earlier study it's noted that "The covariance matrix of species biomass suggested there were negative associations among several species. The strongest negative covariance was between S. nutans and S. canadensis (Figure 4B), indicating that an increase in S. nutans was strongly associated with a decrease in S. canadensis. This negative association was apparent in the biomass values (Table 4)."

Assuming the new paper is correct that there is no correlation between CO2 and goldenrod biomass, this makes it sound like the goldenrod is getting pushed out by the indiangrass at higher levels of atmospheric CO2. Or more exactly, indiangrass thrives and goldenrod is unchanged. Maybe, but I can't confirm from the tables and figures. They don't seem to give a before and after CO2 treatment that is specific to both species and soil type.

One interesting point they do make is that "The strong negative covariances among Bouteloua, Sorghastrum, Solidago, and Schizachyrium imply that CO2 and soil effects on plant productivity and species composition will be mediated primarily through interactions among these dominant species. We expect to see different trajectories of community change among the soil types in response to the CO2 gradient because of differential effects of CO2 on the water budgets of these three soils. For example, we expect CO2 enrichment to favor the C3 component of the experimental communities, especially S. canadensis, more on the sandy Bastrop soil than on the clay soils".

They also say "Total % N declined from 2002 to 2005 by about 10% below 10 cm in Austin soils, but was unchanged in Bastrop and Houston profiles." Is it coincidental that decreasing soil nitrogen would correspond to decreasing nitrogen content in the pollen?

So what does it all mean? I think it means that increasing CO2 levels will benefit some plants more than others, and which plants that get the most benefit from increasing CO2 differ depending on the base environment. I continue to be worried about the future of honeybees (we lost our backyard hives over the winter), but I'm doubtful that increasing CO2 levels are among the major risk factors.

I'm also bothered that the new paper doesn't seem to seem to discuss this, and that it doesn't even mention the effect of the increased CO2 on the plants competing for the shared resources. I'd guess that the headline of "Increasing CO2 helps native prairie grass outcompete famous allergen" didn't have much appeal. I'm friends with people who've done fieldwork for one of the authors, and everything they say implies she's a good scientist, but this paper seems more opportunistic than fundamental.

Rising CO2 Levels May Contribute to Die-Off of Bees

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