Chernobyl-Level Radiation Exposure Increases Bumblebees’ Appetite for Nectar

A team of researchers from the University of Stirling and the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology in the UK has demonstrated that simulated Chernobyl-levels of radiation exposure negatively affect energy use in buff-tailed bumblebees (Bombus terrestris) by increasing their metabolic rate and driving elevated nectar consumption.

Radiologically contaminated sites such as the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone have created novel environmental stressors with the potential to substantially influence the ecology of organisms and wider ecosystem function. Nevertheless, radiation dose rates at which negative effects occur are uncertain. Burrows et al investigated a potential mechanism for these sub-lethal consequences by testing whether radiation exposure makes bees less metabolically efficient. Image credit: Josef Pichler.

Radiologically contaminated sites such as the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone have created novel environmental stressors with the potential to substantially influence the ecology of organisms and wider ecosystem function. Nevertheless, radiation dose rates at which negative effects occur are uncertain. Burrows et al investigated a potential mechanism for these sub-lethal consequences by testing whether radiation exposure makes bees less metabolically efficient. Image credit: Josef Pichler.

The Chernobyl Exclusion Zone is a 1,620-square-mile area of contamination around the Chernobyl nuclear plant.

Although the zone is often thought of as a barren wasteland, in the years since the 1986 nuclear accident it has become a biodiverse habitat, home to dozens of mammal species such as wolves, moose, roe deer, red deer, and wild boar. Previous research has also revealed that pollinators are quite abundant in the area.

However, the landscape still delivers low-dose rates of radiation to organisms that inhabit the area and the ecological consequences of this remain unclear.

“Whilst we know about how radiation affects some organisms at Chernobyl, one big challenge is to work out how multispecies ecosystems respond to this type of chronic radiation stress and whether evolutionary responses have occurred in the species that live there,” said Jessica Burrows, a researcher at the University of Stirling.

To test the effects of sub-lethal doses of radiation on bumblebees, Burrows and colleagues used a cesium source that exposed the insects to Chernobyl-levels of radiation.

The scientists were able measure the amount of nectar consumed by weighing feeding tubes, and the bumblebees’ metabolic rates by measuring the rate they produced carbon dioxide.

“An increase in nectar consumption for an individual bee could have important ecological consequences, as bees may need to spend more time foraging to collect nectar for their individual needs,” Burrows said.

“As a result, the growth of bumblebee colonies may be impaired if fewer resources are available for the developing brood; this might reduce the number of bees in the ecosystem.”

“Further work is needed within the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone to understand the impacts of chronic low-dose exposure on the wider ecosystem,” she added.

Burrows and co-authors presented the findings today at the British Ecological Society (BES) annual meeting in Belfast, Northern Ireland.

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Burrows et al. Chernobyl-level radiation exposure triggers elevated metabolic rate and nectar consumption in bumblebees (Bombus terrestris). BES Annual Meeting 2019, S37

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