City bees outbreed their country cousins

Bumblebees placed in urban areas produce more offspring than colonies in agricultural areas, concludes a surprising new study. The research, led by academics from Royal Holloway University of London and including an Imperial College London researcher, is published today in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B . Despite the fact that urban areas are usually seen as being less friendly to wildlife, this study showed that bumblebee colonies actually grew better when placed in the urbanised London area than surrounding agricultural sites. These results suggest that we may need to focus more attention on supporting bumblebees in areas of heavy agricultural practices. Dr Richard Gill Bumblebees are important pollinators but are facing multiple threats, including changes in the availability to forage because of land-use change and pressure from parasites and disease. Finding what controls their breeding success is therefore important. PhD student Ash Samuelson , from the School of Biological Sciences at Royal Holloway, set out to discover why: is it that bees simply move into urban areas, or are urban bee colonies are more successful and able to produce more offspring? - Agricultural impacts on wildlife.