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<P>Ecological Society of America Annual Meeting, Organized Oral Session 4
<BR>“The Landscape-Scale Ecology of Pollinators and Pollination: Mechanisms,
Patterns, and Processes”</P>
<P>Monday, Aug. 4, 2008, 1:30-5:30 p.m., 202C Midwest Airlines Center</P>
<P>Newswise — Most of the world’s plant species rely on animals to transfer
their pollen to other plants. The undisputed queen of these animal pollinators
is the bee, made up of about 30,000 species worldwide, whose daily flights aid
in the reproduction of more than half of the world’s flowering plants. In recent
years, however, an unprecedented and unexplained decline in bee populations
across the U.S. and Europe has placed the health of ecosystems and the
sustainability of crops in peril. </P>
<P>In an oral session at the Annual Meeting of the Ecological Society of
America, an interdisciplinary group of scientists will explore the problem of
bee habitat loss at a broad scale to determine what can be done to preserve bees
in their native habitats. The session, titled “The Landscape-Scale Ecology of
Pollinators and Pollination,” will include scientists in the fields of computer
science, mathematics and ecology from institutions in the U.S., Europe and Asia.
</P>
<P>The most recent and headline-capturing phenomenon, known as colony collapse
disorder, is characterized by the disappearance of adult honeybees from
beekeeper hives, leaving behind bee larvae with no caretakers. The bee decline
is particularly unnerving for farmers because an estimated 80 percent of all
food crops are pollinated by honeybees and their wild cousins. Stymied
scientists have proposed a host of reasons for managed honeybee declines,
including climate change, parasites, diseases, overexposure to pesticides and
loss of suitable habitat; most researchers believe that a combination of these
factors is responsible. In this oral session, scientists turn their attention to
native, wild bees to determine whether they are undergoing – or might undergo –
the same decline. </P>
<P>One of the session’s organizers, Neal Williams of Bryn Mawr College, hopes
that the session will result in the synthesis of ideas from many disciplines.
“We want to know: Can we look at landscape models in a predictive way and use
those to inform us about natural populations and how they deliver pollinator
services to crops?” he asks. </P>
<P>Rachael Winfree of Rutgers University is particularly interested in the
health of native bees as “biological insurance” against the decline of
honeybees. “Over half of the world’s native plants require animal pollinators,
and most of those are bees,” she says. “Native pollinators are serving as a
backup plan for the honeybee.”</P>
<P>Winfree will present a study that combines data from over 50 published
studies of bee population sizes and diversity. She found that in areas of
extreme fragmentation due to human development, animal grazing, logging and crop
fields, bee populations were smaller and the number of bee species was lower
than in natural or minimally disturbed areas. </P>
<P>Scientists are also using technological methods to further understand bee
communities. Daniel Chalk, a graduate student at the University of Exeter in the
United Kingdom, used an artificial intelligence computer model to predict flight
patterns of wild bumblebees. His model is useful because it can predict how bees
would forage, or look for food resources, in different landscapes. </P>
<P>“Crucially, our model is able to predict the behavior of bees in larger-scale
foraging environments, where the foraging patches can be thought of as large
fields of crops,” says Chalk. His model, he says, could help scientists
understand how land disturbance caused by humans affects bee species richness
and density. </P>
<P>Williams used an experimental approach to understand the landscape-scale
ecology of native bumblebees. He and his colleagues established 38 bee colonies
across central California, ranging from undisturbed chaparral to organic and
conventional farms. During the course of the summer months, they found that the
further a colony was from natural areas, the fewer worker bees it sustained.
Williams’ team also found that bees always collected pollen from both crops and
native plants. Since crop fields aren’t in bloom for the entire bee active
season, Williams says, the bees need an adequate alternative source of nectar
and pollen, and may travel several kilometers to find it. Therefore, a mosaic
landscape that has natural areas mixed in with agriculture is important to keep
bee colonies healthy.</P>
<P>“Today’s landscape is both natural and managed,” says Williams. “It’s not
just matrix of natural areas with agriculture mixed in, but a patchwork quilt
with animals using all of the areas in the landscape.” </P>
<P>Other presenters in this session include Juliet Osborne of the Centre for
Soils and Ecosystem Function, United Kingdom, who will speak about bee movement
patterns and pollen flow; Yukari Suzuki-Ohno of Tokohu University, Japan, who
will discuss bee nest site choice; Margarita Lopez-Uribe of Cornell University,
who will talk about the ecology of gene flow among bee populations; Marcos G.E.
Da Luz of Universidade Federal do Paraná, Brazil, who will discuss how bees
search for food sources; Helen J. Young of Middlebury College, who will discuss
human land use and its relationship to bee flower visitation; Ralph Grundel of
the U.S. Geological Survey, who will speak about the landscape ecology of bee
community composition; and Berry Brosi of Stanford University, who will talk
about bee floral fidelity. </P>
<P>For more information about this session and other ESA Annual Meeting
activities, visit <A
href="http://www.esa.org/milwaukee">http://www.esa.org/milwaukee</A>. The theme
of the meeting is “Enhancing Ecological Thought by Linking Research and
Education.” More than 3,500 scientists are expected to attend.</P>
<P>The Ecological Society of America is the world’s largest professional
organization of ecologists, representing 10,000 scientists in the United States
and around the globe. Since its founding in 1915, ESA has promoted the
responsible application of ecological principles to the solution of
environmental problems through ESA reports, journals, research, and expert
testimony to Congress. ESA publishes four journals and convenes an annual
scientific conference. Visit the ESA website at <A
href="http://www.esa.org/">http://www.esa.org</A>.</P></DIV>
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<DIV><FONT lang=0 face="Gill Sans MT" size=2 FAMILY="SANSSERIF"
PTSIZE="10"><BR><BR>Laurie Davies Adams<BR>Executive Director<BR><B>Pollinator
Partnership </B><BR>423 Washington Street, 5th floor<BR>San Francisco, CA
94111<BR>415-362-1137<BR>LDA@pollinator.org</FONT><FONT lang=0 face=Arial
color=#000000 size=2 FAMILY="SANSSERIF" PTSIZE="10"><BR><BR></FONT><FONT lang=0
face="Gill Sans MT" color=#0000ff size=4 FAMILY="SANSSERIF" PTSIZE="14"><B><A
href="http://www.pollinator.org/">www.pollinator.org</A></B></FONT><FONT lang=0
face="Gill Sans MT" color=#000000 size=2 FAMILY="SANSSERIF"
PTSIZE="10"></B><BR><A
href="http://www.nappc.org/">www.nappc.org</A><BR><BR></FONT><FONT lang=0
face="Gill Sans MT" color=#000000 size=3 FAMILY="SANSSERIF"
PTSIZE="12"><B><I>National Pollinator Week is June 22-28, 2009. <BR>Beecome
involved at <A
href="http://www.pollinator.org/">www.pollinator.org</A></I></FONT></B></DIV></FONT><BR><BR><BR><DIV><FONT style="color: black; font: normal 10pt ARIAL, SAN-SERIF;"><HR style="MARGIN-TOP: 10px">Looking for a car that's sporty, fun and fits in your budget? <A title="http://autos.aol.com/cars-BMW-128-2008/expert-review?ncid=aolaut00050000000017" href="http://autos.aol.com/cars-BMW-128-2008/expert-review?ncid=aolaut00050000000017" target="_blank">Read reviews on AOL Autos</A>.</FONT></DIV></BODY></HTML>