So, the mere presence of flowers doesn’t necessarily mean the bees are getting nutritionally adequate food.

This matters because climate change is altering both the quantity and nutritional composition of pollen and nectar. At the same time, what nutrition the bees need is likely shifting, too. This creates rapidly moving goalposts – it’s increasingly difficult for bees to find and consume the right nutrients they need to reproduce, develop and survive.

In our new paper published in Current Opinion in Insect Science, we argue these changes are unlikely to affect all bees equally. Currently, most of what we know about bee nutrition comes from highly social species such as honeybees or bumblebees.

Yet most bees, including many native Australian species, are solitary or communal (group living but with no queens and workers). They might experience the nutritional landscape and nutritional stress in very different ways.

Understanding these differences is crucial for predicting which bees are most vulnerable under climate change.

Not all bees will encounter nutritional stress

One way to better understand vulnerability to nutritional stress is to think about the traits that shape how different bees interact with their environments. These include:

• how far they can forage
• how flexible their diets are
• whether they live alone or in groups
• how large those groups tend to be.

These traits can influence whether bees even encounter nutritional stress in the first place.

For example, a species with a large foraging range and a broad diet might live in a nutritionally poor landscape, but still be able to travel far enough, or combine pollen from different flowers, to meet its nutritional requirements. In contrast, species with narrower diets or shorter foraging ranges might have fewer opportunities to balance their diets.

Native stingless bees, such as Tetragonula carbonaria, generally forage over shorter distances than honeybees. This could make them more dependent on the nutritional quality of nearby flowers and more vulnerable to a changing climate.

Living in a group may help a little

Once nutritional stress occurs, other traits will determine how this stress is buffered and absorbed.

T. carbonaria, for instance, live in colonies with workers that collect food and share resources. This kind of social organisation can buffer short-term changes in the environment. Even if their foraging range is small, and one floral resource declines for a season, a colony might be able to shift foraging effort, draw on stored resources, or distribute food among nestmates and brood.

But despite potential buffering, poor nutrition can still impact social species. This can show up as fewer offspring, slower colony growth, smaller workers, weaker immunity, or reduced ability to cope with other stressors, such as heat or pesticides.

Solitary bees might have fewer safety nets

Solitary bees, by contrast, will likely face different problems when it comes to nutritional stress. Many native bees, such as blue banded bees (Amegilla chlorocyanea, pictured below), don’t benefit from the support of a colony.

A single female must find a nest, collect pollen, lay eggs and provide food for her offspring. Under predictable conditions, this can be a very effective way of interacting with the environment.

However, if the right flowers are missing, bloom too late, or produce pollen containing different nutrients to what the bee has evolved to expect, the effects could be more immediate: fewer nests, smaller offspring, fewer daughters and lower chance of survival.

In these species, the condition of one female can shape the next generation, so poor nutrition might lead to rapid population declines. This means the timing and quality of floral resources are likely to be especially important for many of our native bees.

How we can help our native bees

To accurately predict how species respond to climate change, future studies will need to connect floral nutrition with bee performance in real landscapes. Most importantly, we need to include a diverse range of bees with different social lives and traits in these studies.

For now, there are still practical steps we can take to support our native bees at home. Rather than simply planting more flowers, we need to be more deliberate about what we plant.

Native plants are of course important, but we should plant them in diverse mixes, to account for variability in nutritional availability and timing.

The same applies to nesting habitats. Many native bees will not use a hive or a bee hotel. Some need bare or lightly disturbed ground; others use stems, wood or existing cavities.

So avoid the urge to over-manage every patch of ground – leave some bare earth and dead branching stems in your roses and other plants. This will make your garden or landscape more useful to more bees, so we can help support them in this rapidly changing world.

The post Most bees are solitary and don’t live in hives. Climate change risks them starving appeared first on MASSIVE News.

The arrival of H5N1 in Australia is not cause for panic, as this outbreak is yet to unfold. But we must be extra vigilant in how we observe and interact with wildlife and nature. The future of our most vulnerable species depends on it.

For threatened species, an H5N1 outbreak could be catastrophic. And a mass mortality event could be the final straw that finishes off a species. This is especially true if a population is already in decline, is geographically restricted or gathers to breed during certain seasons.

Since 2021, the H5N1 strain has killed millions of the world’s wild birds, mammals and poultry. This is because it can spread faster than other HPAI strains – including between mammals – and move between continents via migratory birds.

Why is H5N1 so dangerous?

Globally, H5N1 has already devastated wildlife populations. In Australia, this deadly virus could greatly disrupt ecosystems and push our most threatened species even closer to extinction.

However, it’s hard to predict how H5N1 will affect our wildlife and ecosystems. This strain of the virus is not yet established in Australia. And many of our species are endemic – meaning they’re not found anywhere outside Australia – so we don’t have the data needed to reliably predict how H5N1 may affect them.

Read more:
How did millions of fish die gasping in the Darling – after three years of rain?

Compared to other countries and continents, Australia has had longer to prepare for an H5N1 outbreak.

Threatened species most at risk

Carnivorous marsupials such as endangered Tasmanian devils and quoll species are also at risk, as their hunting and scavenging may expose them to infected carcasses.

The federal government has so far invested A3 million to bolster our H5N1 response. This money will go towards disease surveillance, invasive species control, captive breeding programs and efforts to monitor wildlife health.

What’s received less attention are our iconic but increasingly threatened mammals. This includes the egg-laying platypus, native rodents such as the rakali and numerous marsupial species. In the United States, the virus has already done widespread damage to native rodents such as squirrels and voles, and the marsupial Virginia Opossum. It may well do the same to Australia’s mammals.

In freshwater and marine environments, an H5N1 outbreak could see many birds die in and around waterways in a short period. Nutrients from the bird carcasses could pollute waterways if not cleaned up, worsening water quality and oxygen levels and potentially causing widespread fish kills.

Read more:
Bird flu is here. Can we stop the spread?

An H5N1 outbreak in predator species could see prey populations surge. If a local dingo population is wiped out by the virus, the kangaroos, wallabies, feral goats and other herbivores they prey on could rapidly increase in numbers. This could lead to overgrazing, which in turn would deprive other animals of food and shelter.

Read more:
What’s the risk of humans getting sick from bird flu?

only feeding birds in backyards, never in the wild, and following strict hygiene measures such as cleaning water baths weekly and opting for hanging bird feeders

Long-term damage to ecosystems

Authorities have confirmed three seabirds have died of the highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) H5N1 virus. It is too early to know if H5N1 has spread beyond these animals to other wildlife or livestock in Australia. But it appears very much a matter of when, not if, this happens.

After the initial outbreak passes, populations may rebound through breeding and immigration. However, an extreme drop in numbers can create a genetic bottleneck, leading to rapid, substantial loss of genetic diversity. This, in turn, can threaten a population’s long-term health.

The H5N1 strain could also prove deadly to our Australian sea lion and black swan populations. Black swans appear particularly susceptible to H5N1, which may be because they evolved in the isolated island continent of Australia. Unlike other swan species, they lack certain genetic traits that might help their immune systems fight the H5N1 virus.

keeping dogs and cats away from wildlife, animal faeces and especially dead carcasses.

So, what can we do?

The H5N1 strain of bird flu spreads through contact with bodily fluids such as saliva and faeces, infected animals or contaminated environments. It can also be transmitted through scavenging by species that feed on infected carcasses.

Beyond individual species, H5N1 has the potential to greatly disrupt and devastate Australia’s ecosystems.

Read more:
The first case of H5N1 bird flu in Australia has been confirmed. What does this mean?

• not touching native wildlife
• immediately reporting any sick or dead animals to the Emergency Animal Disease hotline on 1800 675 888 or organisations such as Wildlife Health Australia
• The deadly H5N1 strain of bird flu has now been found in a second state, South Australia, after earlier being identified in Western Australia.
• But we can also help stop the spread of H5N1 on an individual level by:

Kangaroos, wallabies, possums and bandicoots can also scavenge and eat meat, meaning they could come in contact with H5N1. Species that live near shore birds in coastal and island habitats – including endangered mainland eastern barred bandicoots and threatened quokkas – are even more at risk.

Since detecting H5N1 in Australia, authorities have understandably focused on protecting Australia’s spectacular birds – including the threatened regent honeyeater and orange-bellied parrot.

The post Bird flu has spread to two Australian states. Here’s how it could accelerate our extinction crisis appeared first on MASSIVE News.

How is it possible to discover a new species in NYC? Vox senior correspondent Benji Jones recently set up insect traps in New York City’s Central Park and Prospect Park as part of a project to try to identify a new species. But this isn’t just a wild experiment. The project is based on a surprising reality: Despite how thoroughly explored places like New York seem, scientists still haven’t identified most of the species on Earth. This is especially true for some insect families and other small organisms, many of which belong to what scientists call “dark taxa”: groups where the vast majority of species remain undescribed.

You can find out more about the Species Project at Vox.com, where Benji will be updating his findings all summer long.

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The post 90% of all species are undiscovered appeared first on MASSIVE News.