Bee population thrived after last Ice Age: study

The population of a bee species appears to have dramatically flourished in the period of global warming following the last Ice Age some 18,000 years ago, a new study has found.
The Australian small carpenter bee species is found in sub-tropical, coastal and desert areas from the north-east to the south of Australia.
Researchers from Flinders University of South Australia and University of New Hampshire in the US modelled its past responses to climate change with the help of DNA sequences.
"You see a rapid increase in population size from about 18,000 years ago, just as the climate began warming up after the last Ice Age," said Rebecca Dew from Flinders.

"This matches the findings from two previous studies on bees from North America and Fiji," she said.
"It is really interesting that you see very similar patterns in bees around the world. Different climate, different environment, but the bees have responded in the same way at around the same time," she added.

In the face of future global warming these findings could be a good sign for some bees, researchers said.
However, there are other studies showing that some rare and ancient tropical bees require cool climate and, as a result, are already restricted to the highest mountain peaks of Fiji.

For these species, climate warming could spell their eventual extinction, researchers said.
"We now know that climate change impacts bees in major ways. They are likely to be both positive and negative, and we need to know how this mix will unfold," said Dew.
Bees are major pollinators and are critical for many plants, ecosystems, and agricultural crops, researchers said.
The findings were published in the Journal of Hymenoptera Research.