Post by account_disabled on Mar 13, 2024 3:14:02 GMT -5
In a new development that sounds like the plot of a futuristic sci-fi movie, researchers have created a robotic drone that mimics bees in the race to solve the rapid decline of global bee populations.
Eijiro Miyako and his colleagues at Japan's National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology created the tiny drone, which weighs just half an ounce ( grams) and measures just inches ( centimeters). See it in action below in the video posted by New Scientist:
The manually controlled drone mimics the cross-pollination process carried out by honey bees. Its base is covered with horse hair and a sticky gelling substance. When the drone lands on a flower, the pol Caseno Email List len sticks to its base and is then rubbed onto the next flower it visits.
In experiments, the drone successfully pollinated a species of Japanese lily without damaging the stamens or pistils upon landing.
Read also:
Bumblebees damage leaves to speed up flowering
Why are bees so important?
Bees play a fundamental role in the life cycle of most plant species. Pollination is a fundamental part of the reproduction process of flowering plants. The male reproductive parts (stamens) contain pollen that fertilizes the female reproductive parts (pistils).
Some of these flowering plants are self-pollinating, where the stamen sheds pollen directly to the pistil. But for everyone else, bees are vital in transporting pollen from male to female. This process is called cross-pollination.
% of the planet's plant species depend on cross-pollination to reproduce. Alarmingly, this includes / of the world's crop species grown for human consumption.
Cross-pollination occurs when a bee visits a flower to feed and the pollen adheres to its body. The bee then deposits the pollen on the next flower it visits. Cross-pollination creates more genetic diversity, health and abundance within crops, so self-pollination is favored.
A species in crisis
Pesticide use, land clearing and climate change are having devastating effects on the world's bee populations. In an article published by researchers at Harvard University, it is said that the agricultural use of neonicotinoid pesticides is changing the behavior of bees that are essential for the pollination of crops .
The chemicals in these pesticides act as nerve poisons, with effects similar to those of nicotine.
The researchers, led by Chensheng Lu (Associate Professor of Environmental Exposure Biology) write that use of these pesticides could lead to "impairment of neurological functions in honey bees, specifically memory, cognition, or behavior."
In addition to altered brain activity affecting pollinating behaviors of infected bees, pesticides have been found to contribute to an alarming phenomenon called Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD). CCD was first widely reported in the US in
Since then, it has been a pressing concern for environmentalists around the world. It describes the mysterious events of mass death of entire bee colonies.
A complex network of factors is believed to contribute to the continued occurrence of CCD. This network includes disease, poor nutrition, parasites, and the stress of transportation between orchards for pollination. Scientists believe that a combination of these factors, with additional exposure to dangerous pesticides, could be the reason behind the continuing wave of CCD.
Eijiro Miyako and his colleagues at Japan's National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology created the tiny drone, which weighs just half an ounce ( grams) and measures just inches ( centimeters). See it in action below in the video posted by New Scientist:
The manually controlled drone mimics the cross-pollination process carried out by honey bees. Its base is covered with horse hair and a sticky gelling substance. When the drone lands on a flower, the pol Caseno Email List len sticks to its base and is then rubbed onto the next flower it visits.
In experiments, the drone successfully pollinated a species of Japanese lily without damaging the stamens or pistils upon landing.
Read also:
Bumblebees damage leaves to speed up flowering
Why are bees so important?
Bees play a fundamental role in the life cycle of most plant species. Pollination is a fundamental part of the reproduction process of flowering plants. The male reproductive parts (stamens) contain pollen that fertilizes the female reproductive parts (pistils).
Some of these flowering plants are self-pollinating, where the stamen sheds pollen directly to the pistil. But for everyone else, bees are vital in transporting pollen from male to female. This process is called cross-pollination.
% of the planet's plant species depend on cross-pollination to reproduce. Alarmingly, this includes / of the world's crop species grown for human consumption.
Cross-pollination occurs when a bee visits a flower to feed and the pollen adheres to its body. The bee then deposits the pollen on the next flower it visits. Cross-pollination creates more genetic diversity, health and abundance within crops, so self-pollination is favored.
A species in crisis
Pesticide use, land clearing and climate change are having devastating effects on the world's bee populations. In an article published by researchers at Harvard University, it is said that the agricultural use of neonicotinoid pesticides is changing the behavior of bees that are essential for the pollination of crops .
The chemicals in these pesticides act as nerve poisons, with effects similar to those of nicotine.
The researchers, led by Chensheng Lu (Associate Professor of Environmental Exposure Biology) write that use of these pesticides could lead to "impairment of neurological functions in honey bees, specifically memory, cognition, or behavior."
In addition to altered brain activity affecting pollinating behaviors of infected bees, pesticides have been found to contribute to an alarming phenomenon called Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD). CCD was first widely reported in the US in
Since then, it has been a pressing concern for environmentalists around the world. It describes the mysterious events of mass death of entire bee colonies.
A complex network of factors is believed to contribute to the continued occurrence of CCD. This network includes disease, poor nutrition, parasites, and the stress of transportation between orchards for pollination. Scientists believe that a combination of these factors, with additional exposure to dangerous pesticides, could be the reason behind the continuing wave of CCD.