[Pollinator] Entomologist on mission to save Franklin's Bumble Bee

[Scott Black]

Entomologist on mission to save Franklin's Bumble Bee

Date: 2010-07-27
Contact: Kathy Keatley Garvey
Phone: 530-754-6894
Email: <mailto:kegarvey at ucdavis.edu>kegarvey at ucdavis.edu


 Robbin Thorp

Robbin Thorp

Native pollinator specialist 
<http://beebiology.ucdavis.edu/PEOPLE/robbinthorp.html>Robbin 
Thorp of the University of California, Davis, 
hopes that the critically imperiled Franklin's 
bumble bee will soon be listed as an "endangered 
species" under the Endangered Species Act.

  "It may already be extinct, but I am hopeful 
that it is still out there ‘under the radar,'" 
said Thorp, a noted bumble bee authority and an 
emeritus professor of entomology at UC Davis. "I 
haven't seen a Franklin's bumble bee since August 
2006 and that was a single, solitary worker at Mt. Ashland."

In 1998 Thorp began intensive annual monitoring 
of Franklin's bumble bee in its narrow 
distribution range of southern Oregon and 
northern California. That first year he counted 100.

Then the population began declining 
precipitously, which Thorp hypothesizes may be 
due to an exotic disease spread from commercial 
bumble bee colonies to wild bumble bee 
populations. His scientific surveys, conducted 
three to five times a year, several days each 
time, showed only three Franklin's bumble bees in 
2003, one in 2006, and none since then.

He will return to the area in late July and again 
in mid-August for more monitoring.

"The decline of Franklin's bumble bee is a signal 
that something is wrong in its environment," said 
Thorp, a member of the California Academy of 
Sciences since 1986. "This is the canary-in-the-coal-mine measure."

The bumble bee, mostly black, has distinctive 
yellow markings on the front of its thorax and 
top of its head. It has a solid black abdomen 
with just a touch of white at the tip, and an 
inverted U-shaped design between its wing bases.

"Franklin's bumble bee has the smallest range of 
distribution of any of our 60 species of North 
American bumble bees, and perhaps of the 250 
bumble bees in the world," Thorp said. Its range 
covers about 190 miles north-south and 70 miles 
east-west. The known distribution includes 
Siskiyou and Trinity counties in California, and 
Jackson, Douglas and Josephine counties in Oregon.

"This bumble bee is partly at risk because of its 
very small range of distribution," he said. 
"Adverse effects within this narrow range can 
have a much greater effect on it than on more widespread bumble bees."

On June 23, Thorp and <http://www.xerces.org/>The 
Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation, 
headquartered in Portland, Ore., petitioned the 
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to protect 
Franklin's bumble bee (Bombus franklini) by 
listing it in the Endangered Species Act. Enacted 
in 1973, the Endangered Species Act seeks to 
protect critically imperiled plant and animal 
life from extinction. Secondly, it aims to 
recover and maintain those populations by 
removing or lessening threats to their survival. 
A species may decline due to habitat destruction 
or modification; disease or predation; or other reasons.

A decision on Franklin's bumble bee is expected within 90 days.

If it's given protective status, this could 
"stimulate research into the probable causes of 
its decline," said Thorp, an active member of The 
Xerces Society. "This may not only lead to its 
recovery, but also help us better understand 
environmental threats to pollinators and how to 
prevent them in future. This petition also serves 
as a wake-up call to the importance of 
pollinators and the need to provide protections 
from the various threats to the health of their populations."

Since the petition announcement, reaction from 
the public has ranged from strong approval to 
outright negativity: "Why do we need more bumble 
bees-we already have a lot of bumble bees."

"Yes, I am getting quite a few responses, some 
with photos ­ carpenter bees, yellow-faced bumble 
bees ­ but none of B. franklini yet," he said. 
Some contacts blame the decline on "chemical 
gases and dust, cell phone towers and nuclear war testing," he said.

Said Thorp: "People often ask the value of 
Franklin's bumble bee. In terms of a direct 
contribution to the grand scale of human 
economies, perhaps not much, but no one has 
measured its contribution in those terms. 
However, in the grand scheme of our planet and 
its environmental values, I would say it is priceless."

"Loss of a species, especially a pollinator, 
diminishes our global environment," he said. 
"Bumble bees provide an important ecological 
service ­ pollination. This service is critical 
to reproduction of a huge diversity of plants 
that in turn provide shelter, food (seeds, 
fruits) to diverse wildlife. The potential 
cascade of effects from the removal of even one 
localized pollinator may affect us directly and indirectly."

Some wonder if it's too late to provide 
protection for a species that may already be extinct.

"Other species, especially plants and insects, 
thought to be extinct have reappeared after years 
of not being seen," the UC Davis scientist said. 
"When populations of species are in decline, they 
may reach such low levels that they are not 
detected for several years in a row, despite 
intensive surveys, flying under the radar so to 
speak. It is my hope that this is the case with Franklin's bumble bee."

"One positive sign," Thorp said, "comes from 
increasing finds the past two years of a related 
species, the Western bumble bee, which exhibited 
similar declines at the same time and places. If 
these recent sightings are a sign of recovery for 
the Western bumble bee, I am hopeful that similar 
recovery will be found with Franklin's bumble bee.'

Loss of habitat and the increased use of 
pesticides are partly to blame for the bumble bee 
population decline, Thorp said, but he suspects 
that a fungus, Nosema bombi, may be the main 
culprit. Other bumble bee populations in peril 
are the western bumble bee and the rusty-patched 
bumble bee in the West, and the yellow-banded bumble bee in the Northeast.

As part of a collaborative USDA grant to research 
his hypothesis, Thorp returned July 5 from a 
two-week research trip to southern France. He and 
colleague Sydney Cameron of the University of 
Illinois and Cameron's post-doctoral researcher, 
Jeff Lozier, who received his doctorate in 
entomology from UC Berkeley, collected Bombus terrestris for pathogen studies.

They also traveled with professor Pierre Rasmont 
of the University of Mons in Belgium, a noted 
authority on bumble bees of the western 
Palaearctic. "He showed us the collection sites 
for the original commercial stocks of Bombus 
terrestris in southern France," Thorp said.

Known for his expertise on bumble bees, Thorp 
served as one of the keynote speakers at a public 
symposium on "The Plight of the Bumble Bee" in 
June 2009 at the Smithsonian Institution, 
Washington, D.C. His topic: "Western Bumble Bees in Peril."

Earlier this year, The Xerces Society petitioned 
the USDA's Animal and Plant Health Inspection 
Service (APHS) to protect wild bumble bees from 
the threat of diseases brought in by commercial 
bumble bees. Xerces seeks to "prohibit the 
shipment of commercial bumble bees outside of 
their native ranges and to regulate the 
interstate transport of commercial bumble bees 
within their native ranges by requiring permits 
that show that bumble bees are certified as 
disease-free prior to movement," according to a recent press release. .

Like Thorp, Xerces Society officials are adamant 
that Franklin's bumble bee be saved.

"It is vital that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife 
Service act quickly to protect this bumble bee," 
said Sarina Jepsen, The Xerces Society's 
endangered species program director who holds a 
master's degree in entomology from UC Davis. "We 
hope that an Endangered Species Act listing will 
encourage the USDA-APHIS to protect wild bumble 
bees from future threats posed by nonnative commercial bumble bees."

Scott Hoffman Black, executive director of The 
Xerces Society, said the decline of Franklin's 
bumble bee should serve as an alarm "that we are 
starting to lose important pollinators. We hope 
that Franklin's bumble bee will remind us to 
prevent pollinators across the United States from sliding toward extinction."

The Xerces Society plans to issue more petitions 
to protect native bumble bees.

(Editor's Note: 
<http://entomology.ucdavis.edu/news/webcastlinks.html>Watch 
Robbin Thorp's webcast on Franklin's bumble bee. 
See 
<http://entomology.ucdavis.edu/news/images/franklinbumblebeelarge.jpg>enlarged 
image of Franklin's bumble bee, in photo taken by Robbin Thorp.)



*************************
Scott Hoffman Black
Ecologist/Entomologist
Executive Director
The Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation
4828 SE Hawthorne
Portland, OR 97215
Direct line (503) 449-3792
sblack at xerces.org

The Xerces Society is an international, nonprofit 
organization that protects wildlife through the 
conservation of invertebrates and their habitat.

To join the Society, make a contribution, or read about our work,
please visit <http://www.xerces.org/>www.xerces.org.


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