Canada’s wild pollinators are in decline and without a national pollinator plan, many species could be heading for extinction, like the endangered rusty-patched bumblebee or the American bumblebee, say researchers at York University.
With pollinators, like bees, pollinating 87 of 115 leading food crops around the globe, protecting them from further decline is important for humans and ecosystems alike. On World Bee Day, May 20, people’s bee-haviour can go a long way towards providing food and creating and preserving bee habitats.
TORONTO, Oct. 12, 2021 – This year’s BeeCon will explore the effects of human-driven landscape disturbance on wild bee communities, the development of diagnostic tools for neonicotinoid exposure, altruistic and selfish aggression in honey bees and more.
TORONTO, July 6, 2021 – What’s stressing out bumblebees? To find out, York University scientists used next-generation sequencing to look deep inside bumblebees for evidence of pesticide exposure, including neonicotinoids, as well as pathogens, and found both.
York University research shows species is critically endangered TORONTO, April 18, 2019 – The American Bumblebee – a species once more commonly seen buzzing around Southern Ontario – is critically endangered, according to a new study led by York University. The finding, published in Journal of Insect Conservation, found the native North American species, Bombus […]
TORONTO, ON, Aug. 13, 2018 – By sequencing the genome of the yellow-banded bumblebee, York University researchers have found that inbreeding and disease are likely culprits in their rapid decline in North America. This is believed to be the first time the genome of an at-risk bumblebee has been sequenced and it allows researchers to […]