In polluted environments, diesel fumes may be reducing the availability of almost half the most common flower odours that bees use to find their food, research has found.
The new findings suggest that toxic nitrous oxide (NOx) in diesel exhausts could be having an even greater effect on bees’ ability to smell out flowers than was previously thought.
NOx is a poisonous pollutant produced by diesel engines which is harmful to humans, and has also previously been shown to confuse bees’ sense of smell, which they rely on to sniff out their food.
Researchers from the Universities of Southampton and Reading found that there is now evidence to show that, of the eleven most common single compounds in floral odours, five have can be chemically altered by exposure to NOx gases from exhaust fumes.
Professor Guy Poppy, from Biological Sciences and the Institute for Life Sciences at the University of Southampton, said:
“It is becoming clear that bees are at risk from a range of stresses from neonicitinoid insecticides through to varroa mites. Our research highlights that a further stress could be the increasing amounts of vehicle emissions affecting air quality. Whilst it is unlikely that these emissions by themselves could be affecting bee populations, combined with the other stresses, it could be the tipping point.”
The work is published in the Journal of Chemical Ecology and was funded by the Leverhulme Trust.