Raising children to adulthood is one of the most arduous and rewarding tasks imaginable. The time and care put into ensuring children grow up happy and unharmed is grueling, demanding, and culturally appreciated– for good reason. For humans, when the job becomes too much to bear alongside one’s other responsibilities, we have resources at our disposal. Babysitters, daycares, and parental leave are just a few of the large and ever growing social safety nets we have developed.
For members of the animal kingdom, however, they have to resort to much different strategies.
Brood parasitism is a social brand of parasitism uniquely implemented to force other animals to raise the parasite’s young. When this strategy is implemented, it allows the parasite to spend the time that it would normally have to spend raising children doing other things they need to survive, such as foraging, mating and having more offspring. When done successfully, the offspring of the brood parasite are seamlessly integrated into the “families” of surrounding species, being fed and taught by these new “foster parents.”
Many kinds of cuckoo birds are brood parasites that survive by laying eggs in other bird's
nests, allowing for the occasional sighting of different bird species feeding and caring for eachother.
Cuckoo catfish survive in a similar fashion, relying on their faster gestation to survive, with newly hatched cuckoo catfish feasting on the eggs of the victimized animal.
Perhaps the most insidious brood parasitism, however, comes from Maine's very own Ashton's Cuckoo Bumble Bee. What makes these bees so unique is that they are not only tasked with tricking the parents of a group of eggs, but an entire hive of insects with a hierarchy, designated roles, and a queen (who's throne these cuckoo bees will eventually attempt to usurp.) Every one of these insects has to be tricked, making these bees quite the con artists.
For a species with such brutal methods implemented to ensure its survival, it may come as a surprise to learn that the Ashton's Cuckoo Bumble Bee is critically endangered. But upon closer examination, it may start to make more sense.
For one, these bees do not take over these hives simply because they're "mean" or it's "easy." They do it because they have no other choice. Cuckoo bees are not evolved to pollinate, produce their own honey, or produce without hosts. This means that the proliferation of the species that they are parasitic to is crucial to their own survival. Which brings us our second problem: bees in Maine and surrounding regions of the Ashton's Cuckoo Bumble Bee's range map are declining at alarming rates.
The main bees that the Ashton's Cuckoo Bumble Bee prey upon are the Yellow Bumblebee, Rusty-Patch Bumble Bee, and the Yellow-Banded Bumble Bee. All of these bees are threatened by extinction, with the Rusty-Patch Bumble Bee being one of Maine's critically endangered species.
This, though, prompts an important question. How do we protect a species whose survival is dependent on the predation of other endangered species? And, more importantly, should we?
Brood parasites like the Ashton's Cuckoo Bumble Bee are very misunderstood by the general public. They perceive their methods of survival to be cheap, and "cheating." But the reality of the situation is that these species were created by centuries-long evolutionary processes. They are natural parts of our environment and local ecosystems. One does not secure the proliferation of another threatened species (such as the Rusty Patch Bumble Bee) by eliminating its predators. In fact, eliminating predators is a great way to completely collapse an ecosystem. Without predators, an ecosystem has no means to control prey populations, and falls victim to overconsumption of resources.
So how do we fight for the survival of bees?
Unsurprisingly, like so many other species featured on this website, the answer is to limit our carbon footprint and try to lessen the effects of climate change. The rapid decline of bee populations around the world can only be attributed to climate change, not natural factors of life like brood parasitism.
While individually monitoring our carbon footprints no doubt has a measurable effect on the environment, the pressure is on large polluting sources like oil companies and manufacturers to lessen their global emissions if bees like the Ashton's Cuckoo Bumble Bee have any chance of surviving.