[Pollinator] Are honey bees the wrong species to protect?

[David Inouye]

https://natureecoevocommunity.nature.com/users/54908-ainhoa-magrach/posts/19071-honeybees-may-just-be-the-wrong-species-to-protect

If you want a copy of the paper this highlights, I can send one:

Magrach, A., et al. (2017). "Honeybee spillover reshuffles pollinator 
diets and affects plant reproductive success." Nature Ecology & 
Evolution 1(9): 1299-1307.
     During the past decades, managed honeybee stocks have increased 
globally. Managed honeybees are particularly used within mass-flowering 
crops and often spill over to adjacent natural habitats after crop 
blooming. Here, we uniquely show the simultaneous impact that honeybee 
spillover has on wild plant and animal communities in flower-rich 
woodlands via changes in plant–pollinator network structure that 
translate into a direct negative effect on the reproductive success of a 
dominant wild plant. Honeybee spillover leads to a re-assembly of 
plant–pollinator interactions through increased competition with other 
pollinator species. Moreover, honeybee preference for the most abundant 
plant species reduces its seed set, driven by high honeybee visitation 
rates that prevent pollen tube growth. Our study therefore calls for an 
adequate understanding of the trade-offs between providing pollination 
services to crops and the effects that managed pollinators might have on 
wild plants and pollinators.


-- 
Dr. David W. Inouye
Professor Emeritus
Department of Biology
University of Maryland
College Park, MD 20742-4415
inouye at umd.edu

Principal Investigator
Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory
PO Box 519
Crested Butte, CO 81224