Honeybees and bumblebees don't just buzz through fields of flowers. They're also crucial pollinators of our crops, and are integral to our food supply. Yet these insects may just be in trouble; it turns out that domesticated honeybees are driving deadly diseases into wild bumblebee populations.
"Wild and managed bees are in decline at national and global scales," said Matthias Furst, one of the researchers, in a news release. "Given their central role in pollinating wildflowers and crops, it is essential that we understand what lies behind these declines. Our results suggest that emerging diseases, spread from managed bees, may be an important cause of wild bee decline."
Honeybees and bumblebees are crucial pollinators. In fact, pollinators are responsible for cross-pollination, which helps 30 percent of the world's crops and 90 percent of our wild plants, according to the NRDC. More than $15 billion a year in U.S. crops are pollinated by bees, including apples, berries, cantaloupes, cucumbers, alfalfa and almonds. This means that if honeybees and bumblebees disappear, these crops may be in trouble.
Over the past several years, bees have continued to decline. In order to see whether honeybees could potentially be infecting wild bumblebee populations with viruses, though, the researchers collected both species from 26 sites and then screened them for parasites. They found that the parasites were widespread in both the bumblebees and the honeybees.
"One of the novel aspects of our study is that we show that deformed wing virus, which is one of the main causes of honeybee deaths worldwide, is not only broadly present in bumblebees, but is actually replicating inside them," said Furst in a news release. "This means that it is acting as a real disease; they are not just carriers."
The findings actually show that diseases are being transferred between populations. This shows an urgent need for management recommendations in order to reduce the threat of emerging diseases in both wild and domesticated bees. After all, these insects are pollinators of our world's food crops. Without them, it's likely that both our crops and wild plants will suffer.
