Climate change is triggering early spring across North America and prematurely waking bumblebees from hibernation before flowers have bloomed – leaving many without food and threatening their survival, a new study has found.

These insects typically time the end of their hibernation for when flowers are in bloom, allowing them to find an adequate amount of food to replenish what they missed over the winter, but the study found they are waking six to 35 days earlier than ever before.

High asymmetry (very differently shaped right and left wings) indicates the bees experienced stress during development – most likely caused by an external factor that affected their normal growth, such as the weather.

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When assessing the climate conditions during the year of collection, the team found that bees’ wings were more lopsided in hotter and wetter years.

Lead author Aoife Cantwell-Jones, from Imperial College London, said in a statement:

By using a proxy of stress visible on the bee’s external anatomy and caused by stress during development just days or weeks before, we can look to more accurately track factors placing populations under pressure through historic space and time.

This is an excerpt. Read the original post here