Monoculture is another way modern agriculture is killing bees, scientists say


Monoculture amplifies the prevalence of parasites in bees.

Scientists have discovered another way in which modern farming techniques are killing bee populations.

While pesticides have long been blamed for pollinator decline, a study published Tuesday in Proceedings of the Royal Society B found that mass flowering of a single plant species increases the prevalence of bee populations infected with parasites. .

Monoculture – which involves growing only one type of crop at a time on a specific field – is a common agricultural practice, especially in the United States, which has around 440 million acres cultivated for monoculture. But one of the consequences of this practice is that landscapes without much natural habitat can suddenly experience massive flowering events and have negative impacts on bees, according to the study.

Researchers at the University of Oregon studied 1,509 bees in sunflower fields and uncultivated flowering habitats in the Central Valley of California, and found that when crops bloomed for a short time over a large area , events can cluster pollinator species, resulting in increased rates of bees infected with parasites when they come into contact with each other.

Monoculture landscapes are attractive to bees because of the massive amounts of pollen and nectar provided by the flowers blooming at the same time, the researchers said. Although mass flowering events had the potential to provide immune and nutritional benefits to bees, instead they were associated with higher rates of parasites and pathogenic pathogens in bees, Hamutahl Cohen, researcher at the Institute of Ecology from the University of Oregon. and Evolution and one of the study’s authors, told ABC News.

“We have an incredible amount of biodiversity on this earth,” Cohen said. “And we are seeing that the wildlife is in decline, and one of the main drivers of the decline is disease.”

While in many ways landscape modification is necessary to feed a growing population, Cohen described massively flowering crops as the “door handles of the bee world” as bees go from flower to flower to collect. food during their daily work.

“It’s exactly the same as a human touching a doorknob,” she said. “We all know that, because of the pandemic… if you have a cold and you touch a doorknob, and someone else comes and touch that doorknob, they can get sick.”

Scientists suggest farmers stop the practice of monoculture, which is often found in “severely degraded areas” such as the Central Valley of California, which has seen an “incredible amount” of habitat loss over the past 100 years. years, Cohen said.

However, the bee’s fate is not doomed to fail, Cohen said. In fields where farmers heeded the call to set up bands of perennials, bee aggregation was less likely to be associated with parasitism due to the increased diversity of flowers.

While Cohen wasn’t surprised to see the increased rates of parasitism in bees and monoculture systems, she was surprised to find out how effective planting uncultivated flowers was for conservation efforts.

“It did not just soften the effect of their aggregation,” she said. “It actually reversed the effects.”

Perennials are often selected for characteristics such as drought tolerance and aptitude for pollinators, Cohen said, adding that there may be “economic barriers” to landscape modification and implementation. conservation practices.

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