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Scientists created the first global distribution map for bees, analyzing nearly 6 million public records of where individual species have appeared around the world. The project, published in the magazine Cell biology, found that bee diversity is greater in the northern hemisphere than in the southern hemisphere, and that bees prefer temperate regions over the tropics.
These findings are contrary to most of the distribution of plants and animals, where diversity tends to be highest in the tropics and decreases towards the poles.
“People think of bees only as honey bees, bumblebees and perhaps a few others, but there are more bee species than birds and mammals combined,” said senior author John Ascher, a biologist at the National University of Singapore a statement. “The United States has by far the most bee species, but there are also large areas of the African continent and the Middle East that have high levels of unknown diversity, more so than in tropical areas.”
Ascher and his colleagues looked at data from over 20,000 bee species. The researchers found that, in addition to preferring temperate areas, bees prefer arid desert environments over forests, possibly because trees provide fewer food sources for bees than low-lying plants and flowers, such as desert superblooms. .
Scientists say the new map provides an important baseline and clues to bee habits that can be used to help protect various bee species, as well as to increase food security.
“Climate change poses a great threat to many species,” Michael Orr, a postdoctoral fellow at the Chinese Academy of Sciences Institute of Zoology and lead author of the new research, told CNN. “But that will be irrelevant if we don’t protect the habitats the species need that are being destroyed now.”
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