Zootaxa has published a study in which USAL Professor Felix Torres has collaborated to analyze the biodiversity and conservation status of this first order pollinator in the Iberian Peninsula.
When we think of bees, for most of us the image of the tireless worker insect comes to mind, ordered according to a social structure around a perfect hive of hexagonal cells that, in addition, provides one of the most complete and healthy foods that can be obtained: Honey.
Nothing could be further from this sweet idea; in nature more than 20,000 different species of bees can be found where the percentage of those domesticated and used for the production of honey is significantly small compared to the vast majority of individuals who compose this large family: mostly wild, solitary and with a primordial role as pollinators for the preservation and balance of ecosystems all over the planet.
In this regard, one of the main impact journals of Zoology, Zootaxa, has recently published part of the research involving the USAL zoologist Felix Torres Gonzalez which provides details on the decline of populations of bumblebees – as a first order pollinator agent – in the natural ecosystem of the Pyrenees. Of the 37 species known in the area “we have only found the presence of 28 and we posit that their disappearance in areas where they were once common is due to changes in the climate and the modification of the landscape by human action,” stated this Professor from the Department of Animal Biology, Ecology, Parasitology and Soil Science when speaking to University of Salamanca Communication.
More information: Comunicación Universidad de Salamanca
Juan M. Corchado 