Diesel fumes have become veritable enemies to bees because of their interference with the food search process of this apoidea.
Bees are known to gather their sustenance guided by olfaction or the sense of smell. The nitrous oxide (NOx) content of diesel exhaust is not only toxic to human but is also largely known to cause confusion in the bees' olfactory sense so that their ability to search for food is greatly affected.
As reported in Yahoo News, researchers from both the University of Southampton and the University of Reading may have found the more in-depth explanation of this interference in the bees' processes suggesting that the effect may be greater than any previous assumption.
According to the study, published in the Journal of Chemical Ecology and funded by the Leverhulme Trust, the poisonous pollutant found in exhausts from diesel actually has the capability to chemically alter five of the 11 most common single compounds contained in floral scents. Exposure of these compounds to nitrous oxide causes the alteration.
Dr. Robbie Girling, lead author of the study from the University of Reading's Centre for Agri-Environmental Research, highlights how humans have repaid bees with destruction in habitat, insecticides, climate change and air pollution so that bees are dangerously dwindling in number globally. Yet in the UK economy alone, millions depend on these insects.
"We don't think that air pollution from diesel vehicles is the main reason for this decline, but our latest work suggests that it may have a worse effect on the flower odours needed by bees than we initially thought."
The Mirror reports further that Professor Guy Poppy, the study's co-author from the Institute of Life Sciences at the University of Southampton points out that bees are suffering enough risk from stresses that range from neuro-active insecticides to external parasitic mites.
"Our research highlights that a further stress could be the increasing amounts of vehicle emissions affecting air quality. Whilst it is unlikely that these emissions by themselves could be affecting bee populations, combined with the other stresses, it could be the tipping point."