Buzzed Out: Bee Extinction Could ‘Lead to Eco-Systems Collapse’
SputnikNews.com
21.08.2017
Bumblebees are facing extinction from insecticides. This is what a team of UK researchers have discovered. The study was posted on the Nature.com website this week. Radio Sputnik discussed this issue with Mark Brown, Professor in Evolutionary Ecology and Conservation from the School of Biological Sciences at Royal Holloway University of London.
The scientists revealed that experimental exposure to a commonly used insecticide reduced the number of queens that laid eggs by 26 percent in two weeks. The insecticide used in the experiment belongs to a group of neo-nicotinoids, or neonics.
They are used on some of the most widely grown crops in the UK, including corn, soybeans and canola.
Apart from wild bees, neonics have contributed to a decline in butterflies and some other species of insects.
The Rest…HERE
