Research on mass extinction of bees that occurred 65 million years ago has progressed, and the possibility that the cause of massive death of a mysterious bee that occurs in recent years can be clarified

ByTreesha Duncan

There are so many flowers and plants that bees can pollinate through pollen, and it is estimated that one third of foods eaten by human beings depends on the transport of pollen by bees. For this reason, extinction of bees affects many ecosystems, and its influence will also greatly affect human life. It has been revealed that many species of such bees have been extinct massively 65 million years ago from now.

Bees underwent massive extinctions when dinosaurs did
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/10/131024121158.htm

Why are they dying? - New Internationalist
http://newint.org/features/2009/09/01/keynote-why-are-bees-dying/

It corresponds to the boundary between Cretaceous and Cenozoic Tertiary about 65 million years ago from now "K - T boundaryAlthough it is said that many dinosaurs have been extinct in the age called "The Many Bees", many kinds of bees were extinct in large quantities just at that time. However, unlike dinosaurs excavated and investigated as fossils, little fossil bee fossils were discovered, so much research on bee extinction was not advanced.

Dr. Sandra Leean, Associate Professor at the University of New Hampshire School of Biology, Dr. Michael Schwartz at Australian Flying University and Mr. Remuko Reis at the South Australian Museum, are concerned about the mass extinction of Xylocopinae (subfamily Kumabasi), which has been thought to have occurred at the KT boundary period We conducted a scale investigation.


Dr. Ryan said that because the bee's fossil material was scarce,Molecular phylogenyAs a result of investigating the line which bees have evolved by analyzing the amino acid sequence of amino acid sequence of DNA and DNA base sequence, the DNA base sequence of 230 kinds of bear that lives widely in all continents except Antarctica is 4RaceAnd I found that many DNA patterns of those species are consistent with the bee that was extinct in mass. Furthermore, by combining analysis results with DNA and fossil record, we succeeded in calculating what kind of pedigree (genetic closeness) exists in bee and how long it is from ancient times .

ByBrian Wolfe

Dr. Leean said, "The data showed that something major incidents occurred at the same time in the four different bean species, which turned out to be the same as when the dinosaur was extinct," I will talk. It was adopted in this researchBioinformaticsIn the computer analysis by bee, from the DNA information of bees, we can know the similarities and differences between various species, and by combining this information with the observation result of the bee now widely spread on the earth, we have a long time It became possible to investigate in detail about how the bee's behavior changed over time. It is hoped that new developments will be seen in elucidation of the mass death problem of bees that has occurred in various parts of the world in recent years by further research being carried forward in the future.

Dr. Lian said, "If the whole history of the bee's ecosystem is revealed, people around the world will understand how crisis the current bees are, and the existence of their existence It may be interesting to feel precious and protect it. "