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Subject:
From:
Christina Wahl <[log in to unmask]>
Reply To:
Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology <[log in to unmask]>
Date:
Sun, 3 Mar 2013 13:22:08 -0500
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Pete,

The letter by Lynn Dicks was not about whether current neonic use is good or bad.  It was about how POLITICS affects what we do about observed bee kills.

It was not apparent to me that Lynn Dicks subscribed to either pro- or anti- neonic policy.

The article you cite by Szabo et al isn't very helpful, at least in the text you copied to us:

> Although pesticides have negative impacts on bumblebees at the individual or colony level, our results suggest that pesticides are not a main contributor to declines of these species when their entire ranges are considered. Our analysis also suggests that habitat loss is not a major driver of widespread declines.

I.E., they say pesticide use and habitat loss are not "main contributors" or "major drivers" of widespread decline. (But they don't say there is no effect of these agents)

> Furthermore, the species we examined were recently common in both rural and urbanized regions and had therefore already persisted through extreme habitat loss. These observations suggest that habitat loss is not responsible for recent precipitous declines unless acting through threshold effects.

I.E., Because the species we looked at are still commonly found in rural and urban areas, they must not be susceptible to habitat loss.

> We consider it unlikely that such effects could have simultaneously triggered population declines among multiple species living in different areas, including areas that still retain extensive potential habitat. Therefore, there remains an urgent need to identify other causes of North American bumblebee declines. The role of diseases in declines deserves further study.

I.E., Bumblebees are declining even when they have access to decent habitat, so there isn't a habitat influence (but this doesn't mean that bumblebees with good habitat access are NOT influenced by "bad" habitat nearby).  Thus disease must be to blame, let's study that.

> Developing strategies to effectively protect North American bumblebees will require further research. There is ample evidence of North American bumblebee declines, and some movement has been made toward protecting them. Until the causes of decline are better known, however, designing and implementing recovery strategies will be difficult.

I.E. Bumblebees are declining, but we don't know why.



So, what have we learned here?  Nothing, I think.

Christina

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