Climate change could lead to rise of bees with asymmetrical wings
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The development of bees may be hampered by hotter and wetter conditions in the twenty-first century.
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Bees develop asymmetrical wings when they are stressed.
Climate change has stressed bumblebees over the last century, according to researchers studying museum specimens.
Bees develop asymmetrical wings when they are stressed during development, and scientists discovered that bees had higher levels of wing asymmetry in hotter and wetter years by examining a series of preserved specimens and their dates.
A second study, posted in Methods in Ecology & Evolution, used DNA techniques typically employed to examine ancient human or woolly mammoth remains. It is worth noting that the novel technique had been used for the first time on a population of insects.
The researchers sequenced bumblebee genomes dating back more than 100 years by employing one leg from each of the preserved bees they studied.
According to the authors, these advances will allow researchers to better understand how stress can lead to a loss of genetic diversity.
The data will now be used to investigate how bee genomes have evolved over time, as well as how whole populations have adapted – or not – to changing climates.
Read more: Climate change may drastically reshape bees, affect pollination
