As invasive species transform the world, frontline agencies take solace that species needing unique partners can’t invade alone. A new study on figs shows they may find new partners to invade anyway.
Hundreds of beetle species seem to be specialists that feed only from small white flowers on trees.
Susan Kirmse
In the Amazon, beetles and flowering trees have developed a tight bond. Hundreds of beetle species thrive off of and pollinate blossoms, helping to maintain some of the highest biodiversity on Earth.
Monarch butterflies cover a tree at El Rosario Monarch Butterfly Sanctuary in Michoacán, Mexico.
D. André Green II
A single colony of bees can have 60,000 bees in it. Together, they can visit up to 50 million flowers each day to collect pollen and nectar. They’re not called ‘busy bees’ for nothing!
The complex interactions that maintain group health inside a bee hive offer lessons for humanity during pandemics.
Rachael Bonoan
Are ‘murder hornets’ from Asia invading North America? A Japanese entomologist who’s been stung by one and lived to tell the tale explains what’s true about these predatory insects.
Peter Alagona, University of California, Santa Barbara
The value that bats provide to humans by pollinating crops and eating insects is far greater than harm from virus transmission – which is mainly caused by human actions.
Yellow trout lily flowers nearly a week earlier now than in previous decades in the Appalachian Mountains.
Katja Schulz/Wikipedia
Climate change has advanced the arrival of spring by as much as several weeks in some parts of the US. This can mean major crop losses and disconnects between species that need each other to thrive.
A butterfly and medicine garden planted by ‘Finding Flowers’ at Maloca Community Garden, York University, Toronto.
(Dana Prieto)
Indigenous land stewardship, resource extraction and corporate interests remain critical issues to addressing large-scale environmental concerns such as pollinator loss in Canada and beyond.
The teddybear bee is a native Australian species.
James Dorey