Bees come into contact with bacteria and fungi from flowering plants during their foraging trips. The Western honeybee () shows a pronounced hygienic behavior with social interactions, while the solitary red mason bee () lacks a social immune system. Since both visit the same floral resources, it is intriguing to speculate that the body surface of a solitary bee should harbor a more complex microbiome than that of the social honeybee.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFHoney bees are crucial for our ecosystems as pollinators, but the intensive use of plant protection products (PPPs) in agriculture poses a risk for them. PPPs do not only affect target organisms but also affect non-targets, such as the honey bee and their microbiome. This study is the first of its kind, aiming to characterize the effect of PPPs on the microbiome of the cuticle of honey bees.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFEur Phys J C Part Fields
February 2022
A finite axion-nucleon coupling, nearly unavoidable for QCD axions, leads to the production of axions via the thermal excitation and subsequent de-excitation of Fe isotopes in the sun. We revise the solar bound on this flux adopting the up to date emission rate, and investigate the sensitivity of the proposed International Axion Observatory IAXO and its intermediate stage BabyIAXO to detect these axions. We compare different realistic experimental options and discuss the model dependence of the signal.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe potential habitability of known exoplanets is often categorized by a nominal equilibrium temperature assuming a Bond albedo of either ∼0.3, similar to Earth, or 0. As an indicator of habitability, this leaves much to be desired, because albedos of other planets can be very different, and because surface temperature exceeds equilibrium temperature due to the atmospheric greenhouse effect.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPresent-day Venus is an inhospitable place with surface temperatures approaching 750K and an atmosphere 90 times as thick as Earth's. Billions of years ago the picture may have been very different. We have created a suite of 3-D climate simulations using topographic data from the Magellan mission, solar spectral irradiance estimates for 2.
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