ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (KRQE) – Newly published research from a University of New Mexico alumnus predicts climate change will reshape bee communities in the Southwest.
Melanie Kazenel and her colleagues claim bees are crucial in sustaining natural ecosystems and human food supply because of their role as pollinators.
Now, the study suggests that bees are being threatened globally because of factors like habitat loss, pesticides, and climate change.
The research, published in the journal "Nature" and conducted at the Sevilleta National Wildlife Refuge (SNWR), shows how the weather in the Southwest is becoming warmer and drier over time, threatening the high bee diversity in places like New Mexico.
“Each month from March through October, when bees are active, we open traps in the field at the SNWR to collect bees, which we then identify to species. This gives us an incredible record of how bee abundance and diversity have changed from month-to-month and year-to-year over time. We have been able to pair our long-term bee data with data from on-site weather stations to understand how changes in bee abundance and diversity correspond with climate,” Kazenel said.
Researchers predict declines in nearly half of the species in the Southwest.
“Climate was a strong predictor of bee population dynamics in our study: for 71 percent of populations, aridity, or the level of drought, predicted abundance. Some bees — those with high tolerance of heat and desiccation in our experiments — appear resilient to climate change and may even increase in abundance in the future. But our models forecast declines for 46 percent of species and predict more homogeneous future bee communities.”
Kazenel and others are still studying what might be in store for bees and the plants they pollinate.