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York U researchers: genetic extinction of bees could ultimately threaten food supply

TORONTO, July 15, 2005 -- Crops and flowers that rely on pollination for their yields could be in peril, as more than 1,000 species of bees in Canada, and 20,000 species worldwide are facing the possibility of genetically-induced extinction, according to research by York University doctoral candidate Amro Zayed and Prof. Laurence Packer, published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences U.S.A.

“The value of bees in crop pollination is more than $1 billion in Canada, and $15 billion in the U.S.A. annually,” says Zayed, a doctoral candidate in the Department of Biology at York University’s Faculty of Science & Engineering, adding, “The ecological value of bees, however, is priceless. Pollination is an important link in the web of life. Global declines in bees will reduce the diversity of plants that need bees for reproduction.  Almost all terrestrial ecosystems depend on bees.”

Packer notes that bees are the most important pollinators of agricultural crops and wild flowers.  “One out of every three mouthfuls of our food depends directly upon pollination,” says Packer. "Our results help us understand why it is that so many bee populations have crashed in recent years, and these declines have been observed across the globe as well as in Canada."

Zayed and Packer have discovered that bees are ten times more likely to go extinct than previously thought and ten times more likely to go extinct than other animals.  “This happens because the sex determining system in bees can turn females into useless sterile males in small populations,” says Zayed, "which means that a small population is likely to be doomed to extinction."

“Bees are the agricultural equivalent of canaries in a coal mine and their death signifies a much larger problem,” says Packer. “We have to make sure that we keep bee populations large – a lot larger than anybody has previously thought – in order to ensure that we have bees to pollinate our crops and flowers for generations to come”.

York University is the leading interdisciplinary research and teaching university in Canada. York offers a modern, academic experience at the undergraduate and graduate level in Toronto, Canada’s most international city.  The third largest university in the country, York is host to a dynamic academic community of 50,000 students and 7,000 faculty and staff, as well as 180,000 alumni worldwide. York’s 10 faculties and 21 research centres conduct ambitious, groundbreaking research that is interdisciplinary, cutting across traditional academic boundaries.  This distinctive and collaborative approach is preparing students for the future and bringing fresh insights and solutions to real-world challenges. York University is an autonomous, not-for-profit corporation.