In an article published in PeerJ Peter Graystock shows how it is likely that the use of managed bees comes at a cost of increased parasites in wild bumblebees, which is not only a concern for bumblebee conservation, but which may impact other pollinators as well.
Stephanie Dreier, John W. Redhead, Ian A. Warren, Andrew F. G. Bourke, Matthew S. Heard, William C. Jordan, Seirian Sumner, Jinliang Wang and Claire Carvell Land-use changes have threatened populations of many insect pollinators, including bumble bees. Patterns of dispersal and gene flow are key determinants of species’ ability to respond to land-use change, but have been little investigated at a fine scale (<10 km) in bumble bees. Using microsatellite markers, we determined the fine-scale spatial genetic structure of populations