Slashdot Mirror
Popular Pesticides Keep Bumblebees From Laying Eggs (npr.org)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from NPR: Wild bees, such as bumblebees, don't get as much love as honeybees, but they should. They play just as crucial a role in pollinating many fruits, vegetables and wildflowers, and compared to managed colonies of honeybees, they're in much greater jeopardy. A group of scientists in the United Kingdom decided to look at how bumblebee queens are affected by some widely used and highly controversial pesticides known as neonicotinoids. What they found isn't pretty. Neonics, as they're often called, are applied as a coating on the seeds of some of the most widely grown crops in the country, including corn, soybeans and canola. These pesticides are "systemic" -- they move throughout the growing plants. Traces of them end up in pollen, which bees consume. Neonicotinoid residues also have been found in the pollen of wildflowers growing near fields and in nearby streams. The scientists, based at Royal Holloway University of London, set up a laboratory experiment with bumblebee queens. They fed those queens a syrup containing traces of a neonicotinoid pesticide called thiamethoxam, and the amount of the pesticide, they say, was similar to what bees living near fields of neonic-treated canola might be exposed to. Bumblebee queens exposed to the pesticide were 26 percent less likely to lay eggs, compared to queens that weren't exposed to the pesticide. The team published their findings in the journal Nature Ecology and Evolution.
The largest crop in the US is not Corn or Soybeans, it's lawn grass. Many of the lawn and garden chemicals homeowners like to use, or are used on plants homeowners pick up at the local big box retailer, contain these chemicals harmful to pollinators.
The statistic is somewhere around 70% of the foods in the typical American Diet need pollinators. No pollinators then pretty limited menus.
Wow you debunked a scientific claim with an anecdotal claim that looks like nothing more than casual observation. I'm sure you're Nobel is in the mail
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
My thought is that no plant in the right environment should need any *cide's. Even if every neighbor only doses one bush, it does have a cumulative effect large enough to matter. Most would use the same argument, a smart guy like me should be able to use it so... Think about the people you hear say that and roll your eyes at. Just because bees aren't in there, others are, and just because they aren't bees, doesn't mean they aren't having the same effects on them. This stuff is just bad. So while you aren't a farm causing a 25% loss, even a 5% loss matters. Just because we haven't studied the other 'pests', as well doesn't mean they aren't as important. If they exist, there is a biological reason they are in your bushes.
Tailoring a yard for the local environment with local plants, or food, has so many benefits. Plants that are naturally occurring don't need all this "help", and stay under control with light pruning/cutting. Local plants only need what rain falls locally. It certainly may not look the same as mom's house, but that doesn't mean its not very pretty. It is hard for humans to change what makes them comfortable.
With that said, I get the shortcuts. It is hard to do. We are not setup for it in this country for many reasons. Everyone wants a nice looking piece of grass, but no one has the time. Stores stock cheap products, mostly produced all in the same cycle of plants that need their fertilizer, that are roundup-resistant. Its easy to keep control of a cycle like that. There is no incentive to change it for the large companies involved selling what most can "afford" or just that is stocked. The expensive stores are just that, so by definition, most shop at large retailers for plants where they can get their discount for a homogeneous selection of plants.
Its not your fault. It is by design.