Influence of high-voltage tower on bees

Power lines may emit electromagnetic fields, which will interfere with insects, thus changing their behavior and learning ability.

Researchers pointed out in PLOS I that 10, 10, in the laboratory, bees will show active attack behavior after being exposed to electromagnetic fields, which is similar to the transmission lines on the ground. Compared with untouched bees, bees exposed to electromagnetic fields also respond slowly to threats.

Sebastian Shepard said that this is a worrying phenomenon.

The entomologist did this research at the University of Southampton in England, and then moved to Purdue University in West lafayette, Indiana. He said that bees were very happy and healthy until they were exposed to the electromagnetic field under study.

This discovery may be a clue to explain the mysterious disappearance of American shepherds recently. By pollinating American crops, these insects are estimated to provide agricultural value of $654.38+0.5 billion annually. But beekeepers reported that last year's bees experienced the worst death in the past decade. In the past few years, worker bees in some bee colonies have disappeared inexplicably.

Researchers believe that the problem is not caused by a single cause, but by a variety of stressors, including being driven to new farmland during long-distance transportation or flying over fields sprayed with pesticides.

According to the facts discovered by scientists, the power cord may also make bees feel stressed. Generally speaking, stress may weaken bees, so their ability to resist diseases or extreme weather is weak, Shepard said.

This new study is based on a study published by the same group in Science Progress in May, 20 18, which found that if bees had to pass through 100 microtra (? T) They can feed, which may reduce their foraging efficiency.

100 micro Tesla is the maximum electromotive force level on the ground below the power line.

The study of 20 18 also found that it was as low as 20? The electromotive force level of T has affected the learning ability of some bees.

In the new study, bees have spent 17 hours (that is, the time they spend in the hive) reaching 100? T or 1 0,000? After T, it is almost the typical electromagnetic field level within one meter of transmission line. Then some behavioral and learning tests were carried out on bees.

In one test, the researchers exposed bees to a certain smell, then conducted five experiments on bees, and then released electric shocks. The researchers measured how many times bees have to repeat it before they can learn the correlation between smell and electric shock, so that they can learn to activate their defense mechanism according to smell rather than electric shock stimulation.

At these two levels of electromotive force, exposed bees are slower than unexposed bees in learning to associate odor with electric shock. After five experiments, only one third of the exposed bees learned the correlation between taste and electric shock, while half of the bees were not exposed to electromagnetic fields.

At the same time, the researchers also found that bees exposed to magnetic fields are more likely to show aggressive behaviors than unexposed bees, such as biting or trying to stab other bees.

Although this discovery is not surprising to Stephen Buchmann, a pollination ecologist at the University of Arizona in Tucson, he pointed out that it is not clear whether the impact of measurements in the laboratory will be translated into the field situation.

Kimberly Russell is an ecologist at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, New Jersey. She studies the number of wild bees in power line corridors.

Power companies have reserved millions of hectares of open space under their transmission lines to prevent vegetation from disturbing the tide. These communication corridors provide sunshine and open wildflower fields to attract bees. In fact, the biological protection study in July found that there are more wild bees and bee species around these habitats than in the nearby forests.

A healthy habitat full of flowers can make up for the adverse effects of electromagnetic fields. Russell said that the negative effects of electromotive force can be eliminated by reducing the total amount of pressure on bees.

Sheppard pointed out that his next plan will study how bees are affected by the electromotive force of wild and external objects, including pesticides or beneficial conditions (such as a large number of wild flowers). Shepard said: "We are not saying that power lines will kill bees, but we should further study the physical factors that cause power lines."

In the past, some scientists studied the influence of electromagnetic fields on human beings. For example, a certain intensity of electromagnetic field may affect people's brain waves and even make people hallucinate. Therefore, it may be quite reasonable that electromagnetic fields have negative effects on bees. It is worth noting that if the electromagnetic field may trigger the violent behavior of bees, will it have a similar impact on human beings? It may be worthy of attention.