Dementia Identified as Mystery Cause for Bee Population Decline, Study

The drastic and mysterious decline in the bee population over the past years has jumpstarted several studies attempting to find the causes. According to a new study, researchers found that aluminum might be causing dementia in bees.

The study, headed by researchers Chris Exley and Ellen Rotheray of Keele University and Dave Goulson of the University of Sussex, examined the relationship between aluminum and brain health in bees.

The researchers collected pupae samples from several naturally foraging colonies of bees. They tested the samples for aluminum levels and discovered that the pupae were all heavily exposed to aluminum.

The researchers wrote that aluminum is "one of the most significant environmental contaminant of recent times." It has been linked to declining fish populations, deforestation caused by soil lacking in nutrients as well as crop production complications caused by soil acidity.

Now, it might be linked to the decline in bee population as well. The researchers believe that the high exposure to aluminum might be disrupting the bees' highly complex brains systems. Without their brains working properly, bees cannot navigate to flowers where they collect pollen.

"It is widely accepted that a number of interacting factors are likely to be involved in the decline of bees and other pollinators - lack of flowers, attacks by parasites, and exposure to pesticide cocktails, for example," Exley explained. "Aluminum is a known neurotoxin affecting behavior in animal models of aluminum intoxication. Bees, of course, rely heavily on cognitive function in their everyday behavior and these data raise the intriguing specter that aluminum-induced cognitive dysfunction may play a role in their population decline - are we looking at bees with Alzheimer's disease?"

By understanding how aluminum and other factors, such as parasites and bacteria, affect bees, researchers can hopefully find a way to prevent the population from disappearing. According to the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, bee pollination contributes a value of $15 billion to crops annually.

The study was published in PLOS ONE.