How a bee turned its back on nature
Insect builds its nest with plastic instead of leaves
DUBAI // A bee at a nature reserve in Dubai has built a nest using strips of plastic from discarded rubbish instead of leaves. Researchers say the insect’s behaviour illustrates the malign effect of littering on wildlife and the environment.
The female leafcutter bee used identical pieces of plastic to build a brood cell where eggs are laid, said Peter Roosenschoon of Dubai Desert Conservation Reserve.
In a paper co-written with Dr Sarah Gess of Albany Museum and Rhodes University, South Africa, Mr Roosenschoon said the 10mm long, 2mm wide and almost 1mm thick strips were “clearly a substitute for leaves”.
Dr Gess said that bees nesting with plastic was “very unusual” although one case has been recorded in Canada.
DUBAI // A bee using green plastic instead of leaves to build a nest has highlighted the effect on wildlife of people littering.
Researchers said the discovery of a female leafcutter bee at Dubai Desert Conservation Reserve using short, narrow strips of plastic was “quite surprising”.
Typically, the bees use pieces of leaf for the construction of a brood cell, the structure in which pollen and nectar is stored and eggs are laid.
The study was conducted by Peter Roosenschoon, a conservation officer at the reserve, which is about 65 kilometres outside the city.
“Plastic rubbish is part of our environment right now, which sometimes gets confused for leaves,” said Mr Roosenschoon, who is co-author of a paper on the findings.
The bee involved, Megachile patellimana, belongs to the Megachilinae subfamily.
In the paper, the senior author, Dr Sarah Gess of Albany Museum and Rhodes University, South Africa, and Mr Roosenschoon said the “tough green plastic” strips were “clearly a substitute for leaves”.
A female bee was captured carrying a plastic strip, about 10mm long, 2mm wide and almost 1mm thick, into a burrow in the bank of an irrigation furrow.
A half dozen similar strips were found in the nest “grouped together in an apparent attempt to construct a cell”, the report said. “The cutting of the tough plastic would have been possible by using the large, robustly and acutely toothed mandibles [jaws],” the authors wrote.
Using plastic instead of leaf is probably not a good thing in terms of producing a nest that functions well.
“It’s unlikely the bee would have been able to make a cell using these narrow, stiff pieces of plastic,” said Dr Gess.
Although bees using plastic was “very unusual”, it has been recorded before, she said.
In one case in Canada, fragments of plastic bags were used.
These, being flexible and therefore able to be folded around to form proper cells, would probably have been “a better substitute for leaves” than the rigid plastic used by the bees in the UAE study.
The use of artificial materials is seen more widely in the animal kingdom, said Mr Roosenschoon.
“There’s a lot of rubbish in the area,” he said. “It was a big surprise the bees will take it but, on the other hand, other animals use plastic to make their nests – birds do it, rodents have been known to carry plastic to their burrows.”
The researchers are unsure where the green plastic came from, although a nearby camel farm is one possible source.
Another female M patellimana bee carrying, as expected, a leaf piece was captured at a different site in the reserve where it was nesting in compacted sand at the base of a plant.
The nesting behaviour of two other Megachilinae species, both in galleries above ground and constructing their cells from resin and sand, were also described in the study, published in the Journal of Hymenoptera Research. As well as bees, the Hymenoptera order of insects includes sawflies, wasps and ants.
As knowledge of the nesting behaviour of the three species featured in the paper was fragmentary, the paper contributes to a better understanding of the evolutionary relationships of Megachilinae bees.
Fieldwork for the study was carried out in April and May 2015. Details of the nesting behaviour have been published in the paper Notes On The Nesting of Three Species of Megachilinae in the Dubai Desert Conservation Reserve, UAE.
Last year, the same authors published a more substantial paper, also in the Journal of Hymenoptera Research, on the flower visiting patterns of bees and wasps in the reserve.