Flowers are like dirty doorknobs: Spreading disease among bees

Thank you very much for allowing me an additional week to work on the many projects I have going on right now, including today’s story for the podcast. Never a dull moment here.

I promised you a story about flowers, pathogens and bees, and that’s exactly what I have to share with you today. I had the incredible good fortune of speaking with both Lynn Adler from the University of Massachusetts Amherst and Laura Figueroa from Cornell University on the exact same day about the role flowers play in spreading disease among bees. It was like binge watching everything we currently know about this aspect of the bee-flower relationship. Lots of information. Very satisfying. And I will do my best to summarize it all in four key points.

Lynn Adler
• Disease where you dine: plant species and floral traits associated with pathogen transmission in bumble bees (2018) https://bit.ly/3h26nzt
• Flowering plant composition shapes pathogen infection intensity and reproduction in bumble bee colonies (2020) https://bit.ly/2z7zUqq
• Science Poetry @Science_Poetry

Laura Figueroa
• Landscape simplification shapes pathogen prevalence in plant-pollinator networks (2020) https://bit.ly/2XE3EVa

WEEKLY UPDATE
#BlackInNature  #BlackInSTEM  #DiversityInSTEM  #BlackEcologists  #BlackBirdersWeek

Being black while in nature: 'You’re an endangered species' (The Guardian) https://bit.ly/3gVd7iG

Black Ecologists statement (Twitter @BEcologists) https://bit.ly/2BE2PDv

Why black lives matter to entomology (Entomological Society of America) https://bit.ly/377GwBy

We speak their names: statement of solidarity for racial justice (Xerces Society) https://bit.ly/2A6LyCu

Judge rejects Trump administration attempt to toss endangered species lawsuit (The Hill)
https://bit.ly/3eYQfx5

Trump administration makes major changes to protections for endangered species (NPR) https://n.pr/2UgF3Uy

17 states sue feds over Endangered Species Act rules (AP) https://bit.ly/3dyJUYK

Bees grooming each other can boost colony immunity (EurekAlert/University College of London) https://bit.ly/30cbLdl

Once is enough for long-term memory formation in bees (The Scientist) https://bit.ly/2UihjiV

A call to refocus away from bowl traps and towards more effective methods of bee monitoring (Annals of the Entomological Society of America) https://bit.ly/2XE2V6o

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Get in touch at tbr@bymattkelly.com.