美国新墨西哥大学Melanie R. Kazenel研究组的论文表明，高温和干燥耐受性可预测气候变化下蜜蜂的数量。相关论文于2024年3月27日发表在《自然》杂志上。

研究人员揭示了气候变暖和干燥地区的超多样化蜜蜂群落16年来的丰度变化，将蜜蜂的减少与实验测定的耐热和耐干燥性联系起来，并利用气候敏感性模型预测未来蜜蜂群落的走势。在665个蜜蜂种群（物种×生态系统组合）中，71%种群的蜜蜂数量与干旱程度密切相关。最耐高温和干燥的蜜蜂类群数量随着时间的推移增加最多。根据模型预测，46%的物种数量会减少，并且以耐旱类群为主的群落会更加均匀，即使蜜蜂的总数量保持不变的情况下。

这种群落重新排序可能会减少授粉，因为多样化的蜜蜂群落通常能最大限度地为植物群落授粉。体型较大的蜜蜂在中度至高度干旱条件下也占有优势，这表明体型是气候诱导蜜蜂群落变化以及影响授粉的一个重要特征。该研究提供了气候变化直接威胁蜜蜂多样性的证据，说明蜜蜂保护工作应考虑到干旱对蜜蜂生理的压力。

据悉，气候变化可能对传粉昆虫构成紧迫威胁，并带来严重的生态和经济后果。然而，对于大多数昆虫授粉的物种来说，目前缺乏长期数据和机理证据，而这些数据和证明是识别气候诱导的衰退和预测未来趋势所必需的。

附：英文原文

Title: Heat and desiccation tolerances predict bee abundance under climate change

Author: Kazenel, Melanie R., Wright, Karen W., Griswold, Terry, Whitney, Kenneth D., Rudgers, Jennifer A.

Issue&Volume: 2024-03-27

Abstract: Climate change could pose an urgent threat to pollinators, with critical ecological and economic consequences. However, for most insect pollinator species, we lack the long-term data and mechanistic evidence that are necessary to identify climate-driven declines and predict future trends. Here we document 16 years of abundance patterns for a hyper-diverse bee assemblage1 in a warming and drying region2, link bee declines with experimentally determined heat and desiccation tolerances, and use climate sensitivity models to project bee communities into the future. Aridity strongly predicted bee abundance for 71% of 665 bee populations (species×ecosystem combinations). Bee taxa that best tolerated heat and desiccation increased the most over time. Models forecasted declines for 46% of species and predicted more homogeneous communities dominated by drought-tolerant taxa, even while total bee abundance may remain unchanged. Such community reordering could reduce pollination services, because diverse bee assemblages typically maximize pollination for plant communities3. Larger-bodied bees also dominated under intermediate to high aridity, identifying body size as a valuable trait for understanding how climate-driven shifts in bee communities influence pollination4. We provide evidence that climate change directly threatens bee diversity, indicating that bee conservation efforts should account for the stress of aridity on bee physiology.

DOI: 10.1038/s41586-024-07241-2

Source: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-024-07241-2