According to a new study, honeybees may be having a harder time smelling the roses-or any flowers-thanks to man-made fossil fuels.
The study was published Thursday in science journal Scientific Reports.
The team of scientists investigated their theory by exposing a synthetic blend of eight floral chemicals, which were identified from oilseed rape, to diesel exhaust pollution. It only took a minute of exposure before the smell of four of those chemical flower smells lowered drastically, while two components--farnesene and terpinene--were rendered "undetectable."
"To our surprise, really, we saw that even changes in one of the very minor constituents of the mixture caused a major change in the responsiveness of the bee to the smell," said Tracey Newman, a neurobiologist at the University of Southampton and a co-author of the study, according to National Geographic.com.
The study resulted in scientists being able to locate the mechanism through where the chemicals affected the ability of honeybees to recognize the smell of flowers.
"Such changes in recognition may impact upon a honeybee's foraging efficiency and therefore the pollination services that they provide," the study finds.
As National Geographic.com notes, even the "cleaner" diesel fuels in production in Europe and the United States haven't been able to reduce the chemical components enough for honeybees to be able to effectively detect flowers again.
Odor cues are especially important for honeybees as they use their ability to detect the chemical compounds in flowers in order to select which flowers are most nutritious in nectar and pollen in order to harvest.
The revelations in the study contradict the previous scientific notions that the pollution in the air masked floral scents essential for honeybees, when according to the results, the fuel exhausts changed the chemical composition of the flower odors.