In the last two decades tens of thousands of Australian flying foxes have died during extreme heat events.[1] Flying fox die-offs feature arguably among the most dramatic mass mortality events witnessed in nature, but they can be indicators of heat stress in more cryptic fauna where impacts are more difficult to assess. The die-offs are important additional threats to Australian flying-foxes and the ecosystem services they provide, and highlight the complex implications of climate change for behaviour, demography, and species survival.
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[MUSIC] [MUSIC] A single honey bee weighs just a tenth of a gram, but a beehive is worth more than its weight in gold. Crops pollinated by bees are worth $215 billion worldwide, and they provide us with 75% of the fruits, veggies, and nuts we eat. Their pollinating services are worth at least $24 billion to U.S. farmers, but that’s probably an underestimate. Bees also pollinate the coffee plant. That might be the most critical job on Earth. One could say that bees are the bee’s knees. To say that bees are important would be like saying Beyonce is a pretty good singer. Incidentally, she has a bee-impersonating fly named after her. When people talk about bee death, they’re usually talking about the European honey bee. Cue the bee roll please. This one species is basically a domesticated animal, just like cows, sheep, or chickens, taken from the wild, put in a box, and used to harvest honey and pollinate crops. Each winter, it’s normal for a small fraction of colonies to die off, but between 1947 and 2005 US beekeepers lost nearly half their bees. By 2006 beekeepers were reporting losses as high as 90% and this honey bee apocalypse was given a name: Colony Collapse Disorder. Talk about a buzz kill-- "Too soon!" A hive that falls victim to CCD is like a ghost town: no adult worker bees, the honey and immature young left behind… it’s pretty much just a lonely queen wandering around like her friends stranded her at a party. But honey bees’ wild, solo-living cousins are in trouble too. It’s estimated that over the past 120 years, as many as half of all wild bee species have gone extinct. Bee die-offs have been reported as far back as 1868, but as far as we know they’ve never happened on this scale before. And we’re not entirely sure what’s causing it. Pesticides are one of the likely culprits, particularly a class of chemicals called neonicotinoids. Feeding on neonic-tainted food can be deadly to bees, and even at nonlethal doses bees can lose the ability to communicate and forage. In some places, there’s just not as many flowers as there used to be. Like humans, bees do best when they eat a balanced diet from many different sources. Thanks to habitat loss, we’re giving them a buffet with just a few choices, and it’s definitely not “all you can eat”. Just because they’re small doesn’t mean bees can’t get sick. When a colony is weakened by pesticides or lack of food, they become more vulnerable to viruses, parasites, and all kinds of other infections. Like these blood-sucking mites, which, judging from their name I’m guessing are pretty bad. These bacteria can turn larvae into liquid. And these parasites lay eggs inside the bees’ breathing tubes, suffocating them to death. Turns out some bees are naturally resistant to some of these infections, so scientists are trying to breed entire colonies that can fight off these microscopic horrors. According to a 2015 study in the journal Science, it’s likely that instead of one culprit, bee declines are being driven by a perfect storm of troubles: pesticides, habitat loss, and infections. But there are possible solutions, and all of us can do our part. We can plant more flowers in more places, reduce the use of pesticides, keep out invasive species, and take better care of our wild bees. Most of all, we all need to keep an eye on our relationship with nature, in the garden or in the grocery store. The Belgian writer Maurice Maeterlinck wrote in 1901, "You will probably more than once have seen her fluttering about the bushes, in a deserted corner of your garden, without realizing that you were carelessly watching the venerable ancestor to whom we probably owe most of our flowers and fruits, and possibly even our civilization." As William Shakespeare once said, to bee or not to bee. To bee. Stay curious.
Impacts on species
Two Australian flying fox species have reportedly been affected by extreme heat events: the grey-headed flying fox (Pteropus poliocephalus) and the black flying fox (P. alecto). Where mixed-species colonies are affected the black flying fox suffers substantially higher mortality than the grey-headed flying fox.[1] However, summer temperatures are more extreme within the range of the grey-headed flying fox than within the range of the black flying-fox, and therefore the actual total number of casualties is much higher among grey-headed flying foxes than black flying foxes. On occasion, the federally endangered spectacled flying fox (Pteropus conspicillatus) may be affected as well, further threatening the species in Australia.
Impacts on demography
Mortality is especially high among dependent young and lactating females, but any demographic category can be affected.[1]
Impacts on behaviour
Observations in flying fox colonies during extreme heat events have revealed that flying foxes go through a predictable sequence of thermoregulatory behaviours with rising temperatures:[1]
- wing-fanning
- shade-seeking and clustering
- panting
- salivation
Beyond this, individuals tend to be found near the bases of trees where they form piles of lethargic and dead bats.
List of recorded Australian flying fox die-offs
Event | Date | State | Area | Number of camps affected | Minimum mortality estimate | Maximum mortality estimate | Species affected | Source |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1 | February 1791 | NSW | Sydney | grey-headed flying fox | Tench 1793[1][2] | |||
2 | December 1905 | NSW | Helidon | grey-headed flying fox | Ratcliffe, 1932[1][3] | |||
3 | January 1913 | NSW | Mallanganee | grey-headed flying fox | Ratcliffe, 1932[1][3] | |||
4 | January 1994 | Qld | Townsville and Ipswich | 2 | 1000 | grey-headed flying fox, black flying fox | Welbergen et al., 2008[4] | |
5 | December 1994 | NSW | Cabramatta and Gordon | 2 | 6000 | 6000 | grey-headed flying fox | Welbergen et al., 2008[4] |
6 | late 1900s | NT | 1 | 29 | 29 | grey-headed flying fox | Tidemann & Nelson 2011[4] | |
7 | January 2000 | Qld | Ipswich | 500 | 500 | grey-headed flying fox, black flying fox | Welbergen et al., 2008[4] | |
8 | 12 January 2002 | NSW | Murwillumbah | 9 | 3679 | grey-headed flying fox, black flying fox | Welbergen, Klose et al., 2008[4] | |
9 | January 2003 | NSW | Cabramatta and Gordon | 2 | 5000 | 5000 | grey-headed flying fox | Welbergen et al., 2008[4] |
10 | January 2004 | NSW | Bellingen | 1 | 3000 | 8000 | grey-headed flying fox | Welbergen et al., 2008[4] |
11 | December 2004 | NSW | Coff's Harbour | 2 | 1000 | 5000 | grey-headed flying fox | Welbergen et al., 2008[4] |
12 | December 2005 | Qld, NSW, Vic | 3 | 5613 | 8900 | grey-headed flying fox, black flying fox | Welbergen et al., 2008[4] | |
13 | January 2006 | NSW, Vic | 6 | 4273 | 4843 | grey-headed flying fox | Welbergen et al., 2008[4] | |
14 | December 2006 to January 2007 | Vic | Melbourne | 2 | 207 | 207 | grey-headed flying fox | Welbergen et al., 2008[4] |
15 | January 2014 | Qld | >25 | 100000 | grey-headed flying fox, black flying fox | Murphy 2014, Saunders 2014[4] | ||
16 | November 2014 | NSW | Casino and Richmond Valley | 2 | 7000 | 7000 | grey-headed flying fox, black flying fox | Godfrey 2014[4] |
17 | November 2018 | Qld | 33000 | 40000 | spectacled flying fox, black flying fox | [5] | ||
18 | December 2019 | Vic | Melbourne | 4500 | grey-headed flying fox | [6][7] |
References
- ^ a b c d e f g Justin A. Welbergen; Stefan M. Klose; Nicola Markus; Peggy Eby (2008). "Climate change and the effects of temperature extremes on Australian flying-foxes". Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences. 275 (1633): 419–425. doi:10.1098/rspb.2007.1385. PMC 2596826. PMID 18048286.
- ^ Tench, Watkin (1793). Complete account of the settlement at Port Jackson; Including An Accurate Description of the Situation of the Colony; of the Natives; and of Its Natural Productions (PDF). London: G. Nicol and J. Sewell.
- ^ a b Francis Ratcliffe (1932). "Notes on the fruit bats (Pteropus spp.) of Australia". Journal of Animal Ecology. 1 (1): 32–57. doi:10.2307/993. JSTOR 993.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Thomas J. O'Shea; Paul M. Cryan; David T.S. Hayman; Raina K. Plowright; Daniel G. Streicker (2016). "Multiple mortality events in bats: a global review". Mammal Review. 46 (3): 175–190. doi:10.1111/mam.12064. PMC 5942905. PMID 29755179.
- ^ "How one heatwave killed 'a third' of a bat species in Australia". BBC News. 15 January 2019.
- ^ "Flying foxes are dying en masse in Australia's extreme heat". Animals. 7 January 2020. Archived from the original on 8 January 2020.
- ^ "Heat stress and the Australian flying fox". BBC News. 24 January 2020.
External links
- ARKive – images and movies of the grey-headed flying-fox (Pteropus poliocephalus)
- Background: P. poliocephalus
- Brief history of Megachiroptera / Megabats