CANADA: Climate change is having a signifcant impact on bumble bees in North America and Europe, The Daily Times Gazette reported.
Researchers from the Universities of Calgary and Ottawa found that the bumblebee species are losing vital habitat in the southern regions of North America and Europe. Another pressing issue is that despite losing habitat range, the bumblebee species generally haven’t expanded north.
“One of the important things to me was how many species are being impacted by climate change. That was a bit of a surprise,” York University Professor Laurence Packer, an expert on bees and a co-author on the study, is quoted as saying by Discovery News. “I’d suspected some may be declining, but not such a large proportion. The fact that at the northern edges of their ranges they are not moving north as the climate changes is actually really quite worrying,” he said.
Usually many wildlife species expand into areas that used to be too cold for them when climate warms. They are usually forced to move into areas that are closer to the North Pole in response to climate change, but bumble bees are experiencing a different fate. They are being held at the northern most range while losing ground rapidly in the south.
Lead researcher Jeremy Kerr compares the bumble bee situation to a vice, or defect.
