The invasive European honeybees create a competitive environment for the native bumblebee as their ecological niches (species’ total use of abiotic and biotic resources) overlap; thus, creating a niche differentiation (the increase in species using resources causes a wider range of resources being used) between the two species. The invasive and native bees exemplify a symbiotic relationship in which interaction could possibly be detrimental to both species—competition (an interaction in which species use the same resources). Moreover, the invasive European honeybee (Apis mellifera) decreases the population of the native bumblebee (Bombus occidentalis) in northern California by creating a niche overlap and competition for available resources in the coastal area (Thomson 2004). In reverse, B. occidentalis partially uses the resources of the Apis; thus, both species must fight for a limited availability of resources. Specifically, these two species are experiencing a consumption competitive interaction—both species are competing for nectar and pollen resources.
Concerning the competition between these two species in coastal California, there must be efforts to prevent the loss of biodiversity. Specifically, by investigating the patterns and behaviors of the invasive and native bees, we can mediate these effects. Humans manage Apis populations through use for crop pollination and honey and wax production (Harpur et al. 2012). The Apis lay eggs in the wax of honeycomb; therefore, when humans take the wax and honey, they are also taking offspring of the honeybees (Harpur et al. 2012). This ultimately effects the Apis bee population in a negative manner as their population is indirectly reduced. Thus, if the California Coastal Conservan...
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...ip of competition, neither species benefits as their interaction causes each other to decrease fitness by having to share resources, which in this case is nectar and pollen (Harpur et al. 2012). Moreover, human use of Apis wax further decreases their fitness. Since the wax carry offspring, fewer Apis are able to grow old enough to create fertile offspring. Ultimately, California Coastal Conservancy will aid in maintaining biological diversity by preventing the loss of an abundance of Apis offsprings.
Works Cited
Harpur, Brock A., Shermineh Minaei, Clement F. Kent, and Amro Zayed. 2012. Management Increases Genetic Diversity of Honey Bees via Admixture. Molecular Ecology 21(18): 4414-421.
Thomson, Diane. "Competitive Interactions between the Invasive European Honey Bee and Native Bumble Bees." JSTOR. Ecological Society of America, Feb. 2004. Web. 14 Oct. 2013.
It is not unusual for bees to die or colonies to be lost, but the nature and extent reported in the year 2006 was alarming. Statistics gathered in the United States alone show that 50-90% of the bees have been lost so far, due to this scientific phenomenon (Cox-Foster et al., 2007, p. 284). Honeybees play a very major role in the pollination of plants and therefore these huge losses have become a serious concern. There are many reasons that have been floated and acclaimed to be behind CCD and they include pesticides, parasites, electromagnetic radiation, malnutrition, climatic changes, and urban sprawl, among many others.... ...
Think for a moment of a world without bees; a world without our buzzing friend. They might look like they barely do much to help our ecosystem. However, bees are a vital part of our agriculture and this makes it vital that we keep them around. The bee population decline in recent years is troubling for both us and our little friends. As their friends, we must do all we can in order to ensure their survival which in turn will ensure our own.
The purpose of interbreeding with African killer bees is to make the specie stronger so they are not killed by things such as pesticides and starvation. One strength for interbreeding with African killer bees is explained by Associate professor Kirk Visscher. He performed a study of 60 colonies and concluded the 20 colonies that suffered from CCD were the ones without at least one African killer bee in the colony (Ring 11). This shows that the African killer bees are a stronger specie than honey bees, and can withstand to live through hazardous conditions. Another strength is that African killer bees are more resistant to varroa mite which is a deadly parasite greatly affecting the collapse of colonies (Ring 12). There are only two minimal weaknesses for interbreeding with killer bees. They are more difficult to manage in colonies, and they have a more aggressive attitude and more of a likelihood to sting someone (Ring 11,12). These are insignificant problems because, commonly, some bees in regular honey bee hives are hard to manage, and if they were kept in rural areas managed by professionals, then the bees wouldn’t be able to attack anyone. Interbreeding with African killer bees is the best solution because it is the most cost effective way to solve the numerous problems of
Initially, I didn’t care much about bees until after I received this assignment. Although I may be allergic to bees, they do help my everyday life. I don’t want food prices to go up because we can’t save some bees. We spend trillions on protection, when we have no war. How about take a few million to save the bees, and possibly save man.
All around the world honeybees are vanishing at an alarming rate, according to the documentary Vanishing of the Honeybees. This film features two commercial bee keepers and their fight to preserve their bee numbers. David Hackenburg was the first commercial bee keeper to go public the bee population was decreasing. Approximately two billions bees have vanished and nobody knows the reason why. Honeybees are used all across America to help pollinate monoculture crops like broccoli, watermelon, cherries, and other produce. Without the honeybees the price for fresh and local produce would be too much money. According, to this film commercial bee keeper’s help fifteen billion dollars of food get pollinated by commercial
How about fruits, vegetables, coffee, even shampoo or lotion? Our livestock depend on bee-pollinated plants like grain. Poorly pollinated plants produce fewer fruits and seeds leading to higher prices (New Agriculturist, n.d.). Some crops are entirely dependent on pollinators such as almonds and others are 90 percent dependent like blueberries and cherries (ABF, 2015). Bees give us honey and we use this honey in food, shampoo, and moisturizers (Mercola, 2015). Bees pollinate 70 out of our 100 major crops; that includes apples, cucumbers, pumpkins, and many more. Our bees are dying at the highest rates ever recorded: 42 percent of the United States bee colonies collapsed in 2015 (NRDC, 2015). 50 to 80 percent of the worlds food supply is directly affected by honeybee pollination (Pennsylvania Apiculture Inc., 2011). Reduced crop pollination will make food more expensive and can even make some crops harder to grow successfully (Worland,
The pesticides used on flowers and other factors that have contributed to the decrease in the population of bees need to be stopped before this problem goes too far out of reach. This decrease can only be described as Colony Collapse Disorder and it will have severe consequences if it is not controlled. However, we are not the only ones that depend on them but in fact most animals depend on them too. Bees cross-pollinate flowers and plants that are eaten by farm and wild animals.
Honey Bee Population Decline Daisy Childs 11-20-14 Professor Garcia ENG 1027. INTRODUCTION: Apis mellifera, commonly known as the honey bee, are solely responsible for pollinating one-third of the world’s crops, and they are in danger of dying off, according to the article “Natures Dying Migrant Worker,” written by Josephine Marcotty for the Star Tribune. This honey bee population decline poses a huge threat to our environment, farmers, and economy. It is assumed by BBC News writer Zoe Gough in her article,"Wild Honey Bees: Does Their Disappearance Matter?" that all of the wild honey bees in England and Wales are gone.
What do you think when you think of bees? I think of honey, pollination, and soon, new life. According to Walt D. Osborne, “Bees are vital for the pollination of more than 90 fruit and vegetable crops worldwide, including almonds, peaches, soybeans, apples, pears, cherries, raspberries, blackberries, cranberries, watermelons, cantaloupes, cucumbers, and strawberries,” (Osborne 9-11) but each year a large percent of hives have vanished due to many different factors such as stress. Most people would declare that the average honey bee is insufficiently important to the world because bees are pests to home owners everywhere, but bees are extremely important to earths’ survival than any other pollinator in the world; they help pollinate most of the world’s agriculture; yet in the recent years bee populations have plummeted rapidly. I am writing this paper to create awareness that the agricultural society ought to stop or lessen the spraying of pesticides/ insecticides on crops, unnatural diets and overcrowding in the hives.
The depopulation of bees could have a huge impact on the environment, which is reliant on the insects for pollination. If taken to the extreme, crops, fodder and therefore livestock could die off if there are no pollinating insects left. It would also have an impact on...
The lives of humans and honeybees have been intertwined for millennia. For at least 8,000 years, humans have sought honey for applications in disciplines ranging from medicine to the culinary arts. But while humans love honey, honeybees provide a much more valuable service: pollination. As the world’s most prolific pollinator, honeybees are essential to the reproduction of many plant species, which in turn benefits other animals and plants. In fact, humans heavily rely on honeybees to pollinate our own food source, a service that is worth billions of dollars a year. Unfortunately, the honeybee population is in a severe and prolonged decline, often in the form of colony collapse disorder, in which entire colonies are seemingly abandoned by adult bees overnight. Honeybees are an indispensable component of modern agriculture, and a failure to discern and address the many causes of honeybee population decline – both manmade and natural – could have disastrous consequences for the environment and human society.
In another experiment performed in 2013 by Bray, et al., the group examined the non-consumptive predator effects on honeybee foraging and recruitment dance. Predators do not need to kill and eat their prey to have detrimental long lasting effects on the species. A predator's non consumptive effect can alter the prays behavior in such a way that it can have a cascading effects on food webs, primary production, and key ecosystem services (Bray, et al, 2013). In honey bee predator avoidance usually has devastating effects on near colony plant source fitness (Bray, et al, 2013). Honeybee avoidance behavior decreases pollinator visitation and seed output (Bray, et al, 2013). Also non-consumptive predator effects can reduce honeybee recruitment dance, which has a devastating effect on foraging behavior. The researchers hypothesized that
Pollinators are very important to the environment because many plant species rely on reproduction to be carried out by pollination1. Bees are dependent on plants for pollen and nectar and in return, are the most common pollinator of plant species and around 90 percent of plants require pollination by an animal7. Bees are used in farming, both for pollinating crops and for producing honey, and the estimated value of bees to the United Kingdom is £400 million per year9. Plants are the primary producers in many food webs and, as so many are dependent on pollination in order to reproduce, a decline in pollinators would have a detrimental effect on whole ecosystems. Therefore, the declining numbers of pollinators, particularly bees, are a cause of concern because of the environmental knock-on effects.
Pollination is one of the most important roles played by insects in the natural world. One great contributor to this natural phenomenon is the everyday Honeybee. Honeybees survive off the honey made from plants nectar. They also help us humans survive by pollinating flowering plants, allowing them to produce 1/3 of the fruit and vegetable crops consumed. Honeybees are mysteriously declining in their numbers, there are many different theories or ideas as to why this is happening. Some experts say microwave radiation from our mobile devices and satellite towers. Others suspect the pesticides and herbicides. Most humans see the misunderstood bees as big stingers with wings, but do not take into consideration that the honey they put in their tea that morning came from the honeybee. Also, nonnative bee species such as the African honey bee threaten native species, humans and livestock when introduced. Bees are one of the biggest contributors to the survival of thousands of species of animals including humans, yet they are one of the smallest and fragile species in the animal king...
Over the past decade bee populations have been dropping drastically. A 40% loss of honeybees happened in the U.S. and U.K. lose 45% of its commercial honeybee since 2010. This is a phenomenon known as Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) in which worker bees from a beehive abruptly disappear in a short time. These data are definitely not meaningless since bees are a crucial part of the reproductive cycle of many foods. The impact bees have on the agriculture and the environment is far more crucial than we may think. Crops rely on bees to assist their reproduction and bring them life. Bees are renowned in facilitating pollination for most plant life, including over 100 different vegetable and fruit crops. Without bees, there would be a huge decrease in pollination, which later result in reduce in plant growth and food supplies. On the other hand, without the pollination progressed with the assistance from bees, the types of flowers According to Dr. Albert Einstein, “If the bee disappears from the surface of the earth, man would have no more than four years to live. No more bees, no more pollination…no more men”. That’s why bees’ extinction affects people more than we ever think, and could even forebode the doom day of human race.