Another major concern of climate change is insects that we rely on to grow food getting infected by pathogens that seem to be thriving while the insect populations are becoming more fragile. One species particularly impacted by this is bees, which have been facing waves of die-offs due to pathogens for the last decade. New research from the University of Massachusetts plans to figure out how this happens by focusing on the food provided to bees, and they have received a $2.4 million grant from the NSF to do so.

Plant pollinators like bees provide an estimated $200 billion worth of services around the globe if you consider just how much they do to keep our food supplies growing. But the same plants that are being pollinated are also hosting the diseases that kill off those same pollinators, and scientists have not really examined just what that means for the pollinator population. According to lead researcher Lynn Adler: Our ultimate goal with this grant is to figure out what sort of plant composition, available as food sources for the pollinators, reduces infection?

One potential source of a so-called superfood for bees is… sunflowers.

Adler’s new research team consists of scientists from a wide range of disciplines, including ecologists, mathematical modelers, biochemists, and molecular biologists, all of whom will work together to paint an incredibly detailed and comprehensive picture of the relationship between our food supply, pollinating insects, and pathogens. Additionally, the team will be launching a graduate training program and an after-school program to help the next generations of scientists understand this deeply interconnected and important system.

We look forward to hearing about their results as their research progresses.

More Information

University of Massachusetts Amherst press release