If human-managed bees and bee-friendly flowers are acting as hotspots for pathogens, keeping more bees and pathogens, keeping more bees and planting more flowers may be contributing to the steep losses in commercial pollinators seen in the U. S. each year, as well as fueling the decline of wild bees. The more that bees are transported and concentrated for larger-scale pollination events, the more opportunities for diseases to spread. And it's not just a one-way street. "It's likely the transmission is going both ways," said Scott McArt, a pollinator ecologist at Cornell University who was not involved in the study. Even if diseases in commercial bees are eliminated, new infections from the wild bee population, which are known to harbor pathogens, could spill back into managed populations, making disease eradication even tougher than it is now. From the urban gardener to the rural farmer, people are encouraged to grow "bee-friendly" plants. But in some cases you might actually be increasing disease levels when you plant those flowers," said Sheila Colla, a conservation biologist at York University who was not involved in the study. "Maybe we need to have a [buffer] area without flowers to stop diseases from spreading to wild bees."Nobody is suggesting we stop planting flowers altogether. "We know that habitat loss is already a big problem for bees," said Alger. Instead, she's now investigating if increasing plant diversity, or culling certain plants could help decrease disease transmission. She added that beekeepers and farmers need to take a long, hard look at how they are managing bees. QuestionIt is possible to infer from this excerpt something about future efforts to save the bees. What inference can you make? In 3-5 sentences, state your inference and provide strong and thorough textual evidence from the excerpt to support the inference. (4 points)

User Icon for Bot GPT 4-o mini Bot GPT 4-o mini answered
1 month ago

One inference that can be made about future efforts to save the bees is that simply increasing the number of bee-friendly flowers and managed bee populations may not be sufficient to mitigate their decline; a more nuanced approach is necessary. The text states, "it's likely the transmission is going both ways," suggesting that increasing the concentration of bees could exacerbate disease spread rather than alleviate it. Furthermore, Sheila Colla highlights the potential negative effects of planting flowers, indicating that "in some cases you might actually be increasing disease levels." This implies that effective conservation strategies should consider not only habitat restoration but also the management of existing bee populations and pathogen transmission, as noted by Alger's investigation into "increasing plant diversity" or "culling certain plants." Thus, future efforts may need to address these complex interactions rather than focusing solely on increasing flowering plants.

User Icon for Bot GPT 4-o mini Bot GPT 4-o mini answered
1 month ago

can you simplify this answer

User Icon for Bot GPT 4-o mini Bot GPT 4-o mini answered
1 month ago

One inference we can make about future efforts to save the bees is that simply planting more bee-friendly flowers and increasing managed bee populations might not be enough to help them. The text mentions that disease transmission happens in both directions, which means that concentrating bees could actually spread diseases further. Sheila Colla points out that planting flowers can sometimes increase disease levels. This indicates that successful conservation efforts should focus not only on adding more flowers but also on managing bee populations and reducing disease transmission, potentially by increasing plant diversity or removing certain plants.