It has come to light in recent years that bees are far more important to the stability of our planet than had been thought possible. Any ecosystem is going to suffer if a link in the chain breaks – but bees are not part of any old ecosystem. As it stands there is a functioning life cycle on our planet and we have documented multiple episodes of extinctions – we are not dead yet. If the bee were to take his final bow, however, we could expect the curtain call. Just how long this may take is impossible to tell. With so many interactions in so many different walks of life it becomes an unspeakably difficult thing to measure.
Mr Bee is known for his work ethic. Pollination is absolutely essential for the many plants we rely on. Economically we would struggle to keep up with the decline of the cross-pollinating work-horses if their numbers continue to drop at the rate they currently are. With all the modern technology we have at our finger-tips you might think it’s something we could bear the brunt of, surely?
If you were to present a patch of fresh flowers to a bee and to a computer there would be two very different approaches to problem solving. An experiment carried out by scientists at Royal Hollaway, University of London has shown that a “travelling salesman” problem is better solved by a bee.
Dr Nigel Raine, from Royal Holloway’s school of biological sciences, said: “Foraging bees solve travelling salesman problems every day. They visit flowers at multiple locations and, because bees use lots of energy to fly, they find a route which keeps flying to a minimum.”
Aside from the fact that they’re operating in a miniature world which would be a logistical nightmare in the first place – these little guys are paving the way in terms of path-finding. If we were to lose them to the plight of neglect there would be a very difficult covering shift for us to put in. As it stands I’d much prefer for our scientists to keep learning from their activities, rather than a post-mortem.
You can have a look at the article here and keep an eye out for more details of the research online, flowers an’ all (it looks like they’ve used some modern-day, sub-atomic, uber animatronic ones!).
