Why don't we use behavioural ecotoxicological studies in environmental management? Michael Bertram & colleagues assess whether behavioral measures are relevant at the population level. They conclude that, yes, they are and they are underutilised. doi.org/10.1021/acs....
@bbmwong.bsky.social

Bumbles are my favorite bees

I have been a beekeeper and would like to be again, but getting beehives to 'Save the bees!' is like a sheep farm to support biodiversity. You can do it well and it can have positive impacts, but more domesticated animals won't save wild populations (don't @ me about sheep, struggled for metaphor)

Recruited a new lab assistant while in the field. They seem less than enthused to join the lab.

Federal Cuts To Research Could Contribute To Recession, Study Finds Wide-spread reductions in funding for scientific research could result in economic losses similar to the loss in GDP during the Great Recession, according to a new study.

"The administration’s wide-spread reductions in funding scientific research could result in economic losses comparable to the decline in GDP during the Great Recession of 2009, according to a new study by a team of economists at American University’s Institute for Macroeconomic and Policy Analysis."

Happy #WorldWildlifeDay. A friendly reminder that livestock cannot replace native biodiversity, despite what you may have heard.

Honeybees interfere with wild bees in apple pollination in China Both honeybees and wild bees contribute to apple pollination and production, but wild bees evidenced much higher pollination efficiency than honeybees. Importantly, introducing high density of honeyb...

Honeybees interfere with wild bees in apple pollination in China. Wild bees contribute much higher pollination efficiency than honeybees. Introducing honeybee colonies increased competition with wild bees leading to reduced pollination overall. besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1...

Native bee populations can bounce back after honey bees move out | Penn State University Managed honey bees have the potential to affect native bee populations when they are introduced to a new area, but a study led by researchers at Penn State suggests that, under certain conditions, the...

Nice story about our recent study investigating how bee communities respond to pressures from migratory beekeeping. www.psu.edu/news/researc...

The NIH overhead cut doesn't just hurt universities.

It's deadly to the US economy.

The US is a world leader in tech due to the ecosystem that NIH and NSF propel. It drives innovation for tech transfer, creates a highly-skilled sci/tech workforce, and fosters academic/industry crossfertilization.

Parents sound the alarm over fossil fuel sponsorships - Comms Declare Parents sound the alarm: New report reveals concerns over fossil fuel school sponsorships harming children, with over half of parents backing an Australian-first restriction on coal, oil and gas compa...

A motivator for writing 'How to Save the Whole Blinkin' Planet' was seeing fossil fuel companies infiltrating #STEM education spaces and sci museums.

Kids deserve edu free from fossil fuels companies using them for good PR while selling their futures up the river.
commsdeclare.org/2025/02/05/p...

📅 18 Feb 2025 | Free entoLIVE webinar
Book now: eventbrite.co.uk/e/952936216877

Figure from a paper - legend: Figure 2. Measuring changes in insect biodiversity can be achieved by focusing on drivers that directly or indirectly impact insect biodiversity metrics and trends (left). Where data on insect populations specifically are unavailable, data from other species and ecological processes can provide inferential support for changes in insect biodiversity (right).

Our new paper led by @manusaunders.bsky.social www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti... takes stock of the evidence-base for global insect declines 🦋🐝🪳🪰🦗 and how uncertainty is being leveraged by science denialists to undermine efforts to reverse biodiversity loss 🌍🧪.

New research on how non-native honeybees alter visitation networks in a peri-urban environment. authors.elsevier.com/sd/article/S...

For anyone who has ever asked me what's like to work with bumblebee brains, here is a great reference.

Pet fur found in songbird nests contains high levels of pesticides, study finds

We're having a discussion about which interesting animal behaviour would be terrifying on a different species. The rules are

a) it can't be an immediate danger to you
b) it has to be so scary you would stop filming and leave.

Feel free to play along. The current winner is vulture murmuration.

A male Bombus huntii with a female Bombus terricola (photos by Rob Wright, Saskatchewan). Not only are these different species of #bumblebee, but they belong to different subgenera (Pyrobombus and Bombus, respectively)! #Hymenoptera #beesofcanada #bees #mating #oopsy

Pesticide use in Canada soars, even as danger becomes clearer

Pesticide use in Canada soars, even as danger becomes clearer www.nationalobserver.com/2025/01/08/n...

Can I be added to this please?

Can I be added to this please?

There have been incidents in the lab when I’ve worn some floral prints…

Bees remain heat tolerant after acute exposure to desiccation and starvation Summary: Sublethal desiccation exposure and short-term starvation do not significantly affect heat tolerance in honey bees and sweat bees.

An inspirational study that everyone interested in the thermal ecology of bees and their responses to environmental warming should read. I'll most likely borrow some of the elegant methods used here, and put them to work with some wild bees next summer 😉

doi.org/10.1242/jeb....

Pollen specialist bee species are accurately predicted from visitation, occurrence and phylogenetic data - Oecologia An animal’s diet breadth is a central aspect of its life history, yet the factors determining why some species have narrow dietary breadths (specialists) and others have broad dietary breadths (genera...

Can 🌸visitation records be used to figure out whether a bee is a pollen diet specialist? New open access pub in Oecologia led by Colleen Smith & Katja Seltmann & w/ my Missouri State University #RussellLab undergrad team!

And the answer is... yes! Check it out 😇 ⬇️

link.springer.com/article/10.1...

A place for natural history in the 21st century Natural history provides an important basis for observing interactions between organisms in their environments. Biotropica recently inaugurated a new paper category called “Natural History Field Note....

Quote: "It is very hard to interpret big data in ecology in meaningful ways if you do not know anything about who the organisms are and what they do in the environment."
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....

Loss of pollinator diversity consistently reduces reproductive success for wild and cultivated plants Nature Ecology & Evolution - A meta-analysis finds that decreasing diversity of pollinator species has a negative affect on multiple measures of plant reproductive success, with wild plant...

[new paper] You probably suspected that loss of pollinator diversity consistently reduces reproductive success for wild and cultivated plants, but here we quantify it: www.nature.com/articles/s41...

This is a really important read.

How can it be ok to manufacture and export to developing countries chemicals too dangerous to be allowed in the UK?

Every year around now, I start to see grad students on social media bemoan that they’re going home for the holidays to a family that doesn’t understand their research, or what they do in general, and it breaks my heart. 🧵 🧪 #SciComm

Chart of predicted extinction risk vs rise in temperature vs pre-industrial. Shows risk rising from somewhere around 2% today to almost 30% somewhere around 5.5°C. The rise is not linear, and increases sharply after 2°C of warming.

Every tenth of a degree of warming matters; extinction risk goes up pretty sharply, with almost 30% of species being lost if we go on a fossil fuel burning binge instead of leaving them in the ground.

From figure 1 in www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

News coverage: www.npr.org/2024/12/06/n...

Two panel diagram. Title: Heat Impacts Bumblebee Foraging Top Panel: pale blue background, temperature reads "24°C/ 75°F" A Bumble bee makes two visits to small flower patches. Text Reads: More journey's, longer visits, fewer flowers, slower flights. Bottom panel: pale red background, temperature reads "32°C/90°F" A bumble bee makes a journey to a large flower patch. Text reads: Fewer journeys, shorter visits, more flowers, faster flight.

Advent Sci-Fact 7:

Heat Impacts Bumblebee Foraging!🐝

Bees at higher temperatures had lower metabolic rates, but made fewer, faster visits to many flowers, compared to bees at lower temperatures. Researchers believe this may be due to heat stress.
Paper: tinyurl.com/28ge2hh2
#SciComm🧪🌍 #SciArt #Bee