Fukushima’s disaster stupid the bees

Bees to collect sugary water on a feeder. One of the bees carries a QR code, allowing automatic mazes to identify it.

In the contaminated area around Fukushima, Japan, scientists are studying the impact of radioactivity on cognitive abilities of pollinating insects such as bees and wasps.

Bees and wasps are known to have a wide range of, including the ability to recognize colors and navigate space.

However, pollution by substances released in the environment by humans, as pesticidescan impair your performance.

In a new study, the French researchers Olivier Armant e Mathieu Lihoreau questioned the effect that the ionizing radiation It could have in these pollinators.

Armant, investigator at ASNR, the French Agency for Nuclear Security and Radiation Protection, has been working in the Ecological Impact of this type of radiation, having conducted long -term studies on fauna and flora around Chernobyl and Fukushima.

In turn, Lihoreau, ethologist at the Center for Animal Cognition Research at the Integrative Biology Center in France, has been conducting studies on the bee intelligence and the factors that can interfere with it.

Recently, the two researchers have created a set of Automatic monitoring of biological activity of certain species – which they used to evaluate the impact that Fukushima’s inattention had in these species.

“I study the Learning capabilities and bee memory“, Says Lihoreau in an interview with.“ Although this is mainly a fundamental research theme, it also has very concrete applications in ecotoxicology: if bees have learning deficits in certain places, It means there is a problem“.

Although, for example, many pesticides are used in low enough doses so as not to kill these insects, end as residues in nectar that they feed and can have a neurotoxic effectexplains or ethologist.

This results in cognitive disorders difficult to observeas the inability to associate a reward with a specific color or smell.

The system developed by the two French researchers can measure these effects – which, although not lethal, They are still seriousbecause they have a chain impact on the survival of the colonies And more generally, in pollination services.

When disturbed by changes in your habitat, bees start Find food in flowers of different speciesinstead of focusing only on one, and stop taking the right pollen to the right plants, which affects the entire ecosystem.

The device developed by the Lihoreau team, composed of biologists, engineers, modelers and ecologists, had been tested so far only near Toulouse, in southwest of France, and not in extreme conditions From an area like Fukushima, to which scientists could access with the help of their Japanese colleagues.

How to test bees?

The places where the special hives developed by the investigators were installed were selected based on the contamination gradient soil by cesium-137.

The local wasp community was also included in the cognition study. Although it is unclear whether these species are pollinating, it is worth studying them, because descend from many generations of insects exposed to radiationexplains Lihoreau

But how cognitive tests are performed In an insect? “The system is based on conventional experimental protocols developed in the laboratory in the last 50 years,” says Lihoreau.

This system uses a y -shaped mazein which the insect can choose between two branches lit by colored, blue or yellow LEDs. The insect needs to understand that it will be rewarded with sugary waterdismissed by a bomb at the end of the branch, only sand choose the right color.

One healthy bee needs 10 tests on average To find the right way, following the right colors. “This number allows us to establish learning curves, which can be compared to see if there is an impact on its ability to solve the problem“Adds Lihoreau.

The protocol used in Fukushima is automated. Each bee is equipped with a 2 mm QR code wide that is read by a chamber, activating the opening of the maze. Recently, scientists at Penn State University also used to follow their life movements and cycles.

This personalization makes it possible Test the learning process of each individual insect, whose Behavior is filmedanalyzed and sent in real time to a server. The whole operation is fueled by solar panels.

Wasks, which are too large to enter the system, were manually tested in more traditional mazes. “Our Japanese colleagues initially tried to dissuade us from manipulating thembecause they are dangerous, ”recalls Lihoreau.

“However, they are extremely useful for understanding the environmental impact of radioactive contamination, because these predators are at the top of the food chain and, unlike our bees, have always been present in the area, long before the nuclear accident.”

Although the results of the study have not yet been published, scientists have already been able to identify a decline in insect cognition in the contaminated area of ​​Fukushima City Hall.

“We can see correlations“Says Armant.” However, a causal relationship has not yet been established with radioactive contamination. But as the area is no longer inhabited, It is unlikely that the effect is due to factors such as pesticides“.