The strange grey goo discovered in nest boxes in Toronto puzzled bee researchers at first, who thought initially that the bees had started to use gum as an additional building tool in their hives. The goo turned out instead to be plastic, chewed differently than the bees chew leaves, suggesting the sudden use of this material was intentional.
The UK-based website Click Green reported on the findings.
"The plastic materials had been gathered by the bees, and then worked—chewed up and spit out like gum—to form something new that they could use," said Andrew Moore, a supervisor of analytical microscopy at Laboratory Services at the University of Guelph, the school responsible for the study on bees.
The nest boxes can be found in Toronto and in the surrounding area, in backyards, green roofs, parks, and community gardens. Several species were found to have adopted the use of plastic instead of leaves for parts of their hives. One species was found to have replaced almost one-quarter of the leaves with plastic.
"Plastic waste pervades the global landscape," said the study's lead author Scott MacIvor. "Although researchers have shown adverse impacts of the material on species and the ecosystem, few scientists have observed insects adapting to a plastic-rich environment.
"We found two solitary bee species using plastic in place of natural nest building materials, which suggests innovative use of common urban materials."
Beyond this, the bees were found healthy and parasite-free, "suggesting plastic nests may physically impede parasites, the study said."
"The novel use of plastics in the nests of bees could reflect the ecologically adaptive traits necessary for survival in an increasingly human-dominated environment," MacIvor said.
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Original Source: Click Green