Africanized bees rescue loner trees
By Susan Milius
Sure, Africanized bees spread like wildfire and attack in mobs. But they’re not all bad. In fact, for some trees, they’re saviors.
Certain lowland tropical trees that have survived deforestation and ended up alone in some pasture or other altered landscape have earned the nickname “the living dead,” says Christopher W. Dick of Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute at Naos, Panama. Since their native pollinators often disappeared with the rest of the ecosystem, these lone trees seemed fated to become the last of their lineage.