Many of New Mexico’s native bees are so poorly studied that scientists don’t know how their populations are changing, raising concerns about how drought, rising temperatures and habitat loss could affect the state’s ecosystems, the Las Cruces Bulletin reports.
New Mexico State University postdoctoral researcher Ashley Rohde told the Bulletin that public concern tends to focus on honey bees, even though the state’s deserts, especially the Chihuahuan Desert, support an unusually wide range of native species, some not yet formally named. Scarlet Sellers, a Ph.D. candidate in NMSU’s Department of Biology, studies bumble bees in the Sacramento Mountains and Gila National Forest, where cooler mountain habitats offer limited room to adapt. “If they’re already on the tops of mountains, there’s kind of nowhere else to go,” Sellers said.
Some desert bees stay dormant underground for years and emerge after rain, but longer droughts could disrupt that cycle. Because so much of a bee’s life happens underground, the effects are hard to study. Rohde warned that losing pollinators would also mean losing the plants that depend on them.
Residents can help through the Xerces Society’s New Mexico Bumble Bee Atlas and by posting observations to iNaturalist, the researchers said.
Why It Matters
Bees help flowering plants reproduce, supporting the vegetation that other wildlife depends on for food and habitat.
About This Story
Daily Reports is Brant.One’s news roundup. Each day we gather the New Mexico stories worth knowing from newsrooms across the state, sum them up and point you to the source. This one comes from Las Cruces Bulletin’s reporting, and their original story has the interviews and full details.
