The Lost Ladybug Project: Help Scientists Save Disappearing Ladybugs

First it was bees, which are important to the balance of the environment in so many ways – especially pollination.  Now, populations of ladybugs around the world are inexplicably disappearing, and these once-ubiquitous little beetles also perform an important service in the natural world: controlling the population of harmful crop-destroying insects.  After noting a sudden, startling drop-off in the numbers of ladybugs in the Northeast, scientists have launched a nationwide project in the hopes of discovering the cause of this disquieting development.

From MSNBC:

“We don’t know why this happened, what impact it will have on controlling pests or how we can prevent more native species from becoming so rare,” said John Losey, a Cornell University entomologist who leads the Lost Ladybug Project.

Funded by a $2 million National Science Foundation grant, the project is recruiting citizen scientists, particularly children, to search for C-9 and other ladybug species and send photos of them to Cornell for identification and inclusion in a database.

“The scientific end of our project is, there are so many ladybugs, so many places to look for them and not very many entomologists, so we really need help building a database and mapping out where these beetles are,” said Leslie Allee, a Cornell research associate.

The C-9 ladybug is the nine-spotted Coccinella novemnotata.  Children between the ages of 5-11 in Native American, rural, farming and low-income areas are especially encouraged to help in the Lost Ladybug Project, taking photos of any ladybugs they find and sending them to Cornell for identification and inclusion in a database.  The organizers of the project hope that they’ll be able to excite these children about science and conservation of the natural world as they carry out this important research.

Scientists don’t yet know whether the disappearance of the 9-spotted ladybug will spur a swell in the population of crop-devastating pests – it’s not clear whether other varieties of ladybugs will be as effective.  It’s thought that the disappearance is likely tied to a combination of habitat loss and invasion of foreign competitors or predators.

For more info on the Lost Ladybug Project and how you can help, check out LostLadybug.org.

Link [MSNBC] + [Lost Ladybug Project]
Photo credit: Flickr user peasap

‘Colony Collapse Disorder’ in Bees Could Affect Food Prices

As if we needed another thing pushing up the cost of food, it’s now looking like the mysterious malady facing bees across the world may affect food prices as well. We need bees to pollinate crops in order to grow fruits, vegetables and grains. We need to grow this food in order to feed our livestock. So, when the bees aren’t pollinatin’, we’re facing big problems.

From The Huffington Post:

About three-quarters of flowering plants rely on birds, bees and other pollinators to help them reproduce. Bee pollination is responsible for $15 billion annually in crop value.

In 2006, beekeepers began reporting losing 30 percent to 90 percent of their hives. This phenomenon has become known as Colony Collapse Disorder. Scientists do not know how many bees have died; beekeepers have lost 36 percent of their managed colonies this year. It was 31 percent for 2007, said Edward B. Knipling, administrator of the Agriculture Department’s Agricultural Research Service.

“If there are no bees, there is no way for our nation’s farmers to continue to grow the high quality, nutritious foods our country relies on,” said Democratic Rep. Dennis Cardoza of California, chairman of the horticulture and organic agriculture panel. “This is a crisis we cannot afford to ignore.”

Food prices have gone up 83 percent in three years, according to the World Bank.

The idea of bees no longer being around to pollinate crops is extremely scary. The mysterious ‘colony collapse disorder’ isn’t the only problem – it’s also the fact that pollution in the air changes scent molecules, making it harder for the bees that remain to find flowers. Time to start growing as much of your own food as you can, people. Not that that will save us from the potential disappearance of bees -–but it will at least help protect your family from skyrocketing food prices.

Link [The Huffington Post]
Photo credit: Flickr user blondyimp

Pollution is a Bitch: Flowers Losing Their Scent, Bees Losing Their Way

A rose by any other name smells as sweet as umm… well… not much.

A new study suggests that flowers are actually losing their aroma due to pollution from automobiles and power plants. Some are also guessing that this finding might explain why bees are dwindling in numbers in some areas of the world.

Researchers at the University of Virginia have been studying how the scents of flowers travel in the wind, finding that the scent molecules bond with pollutants such as ozone. The result: floral aromas are destroyed. Pollution is actually chemically altering flowers.

“The scent molecules produced by flowers in a less polluted environment, such as in the 1800s, could travel for roughly 1,000 to 1,200 meters [3,300 to 4,000 feet]; but in today’s polluted environment downwind of major cities, they may travel only 200 to 300 meters [650 to 980 feet],” said study team member Jose D. Fuentes.

This means more than a lack of au naturel floral scents for us humans to enjoy. It could also have potentially disastrous fallout in the natural world. Bees depend on scent while seeking flowers out. If they can’t find the flowers, they can’t pollinate them - and guess what that means? Not just a decline in bee population. Bees are significant pollinators of many agriculture crops and native plants. The effects of flowers losing their scent could mean problems with food sources the world over. Scary indeed - do you need any more reasons to cut your carbon emissions?!

This news seems to provide a grim window into a sci-fi future that could have come from the mind of a literary great: one in which food has lost its flavor, and nature has lost its color. Sure, 1984 is my favorite novel and I’m known for gloom-and-doom paranoia, but is it not getting more and more likely?

Link [LiveScience]

Photo: Flickr user zaphodsotherhead