this post was submitted on 15 Jun 2024
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Science Memes

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EUROBEE (mander.xyz)
submitted 5 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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[–] [email protected] 13 points 5 months ago (2 children)

Idk, last I checked the European Honey Bee was native, but I guess you could prefer bumblebees?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 months ago

From Wikipedia:

"The western honey bee can be found on every continent except Antarctica. The species is believed to have originated in Africa or Asia, and it spread naturally through Africa, the Middle East and Europe. Humans are responsible for its considerable additional range, introducing European subspecies into North America (early 1600s), South America, Australia, New Zealand, and eastern Asia." So, depends where you live. Especially South and Central American honey bee populations have been overtaken by the africanized honey bee though, which is a feral human-bred hybrid that escaped the lab in Brazil.

[–] [email protected] 21 points 5 months ago (3 children)

They’re “invasive” if you’re not on Eurasia.

Humans took them everywhere else.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (2 children)

That brings up an interesting point, they've been here 400 years, at one point does something stop being classified as invasive?

If we say never, then the term invasive kind of loses all meaning, but I wonder where the logical cutoff might be and how it's defined.

[–] [email protected] -2 points 5 months ago

They are actively spread by people even know and they are pushing other species to extinction, but yeah, maybe let's not call them invasive and solve the problem that way.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

A commonly used definition of a non-native species in ecology is if it was introduced by human activity after the year 1492. Because the "discovery" of the Americas by the larger European society kicked off an age where humans started to travel to other continents much more than before, bringing animals and plants with them.

Invasive species are non-native species that out-compete and displace native species.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 5 months ago (2 children)

They're native to Africa, Europe, West Asia & Central Asia, which covers around 3 billion people

East & South Asia have the Asiatic Honey Bee which is closely related enough that their introduction wouldn't disrupt the ecosystem as they fill the same niche in the same way

That leaves only around 15% of the global population somewhere European Honey Bees even have potential to become invasive, so it's a safe bet that they aren't for most people

[–] [email protected] 0 points 5 months ago

Apis mellifera is a much better pollinator for most cultivars produced by agriculture around the world, so it's been introduced into East, South and Southeast Asia too.

Also, you're not accounting for species uniqueness, which is highest in Australia/NZ/PNG, southern Africa and parts of South America. These places also have native bees that are outcompeted and outright attacked by Eurobees.

The truth is complicated, but also simple - this invasive species we tolerate and even introduce because it massively benefits food production for humans.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

“Only the colonized need fear the colonizer”

Native to PARTS of Africa, PARTS of Asia.

Not native to any of the island nations.

Not native to the Americas.

More to the point they wouldn’t be as widespread as they are without human intervention.

I am generally all for the pollinators of any kind but this meme has a good point and few people actually know that the honeybee is only prominent in its place because of humans.