Bees
Reading this leads me to believe that bees disappear when the local habitat is uninhabitable. By uninhabitable, I mean genetic variations and mutations (whether natural or man-made via genetic modification) that are present in the environment that are not something a bee is programmed for. The part about DNA-destroying irradiation convinces me that the bees are too sensitive to changes in the environment, and it's finally gotten into their food chain in a way that makes it difficult for them to stay.
The question now is: where do they go? Do they die? Abandon ship and scatter in every and all direction? Migrate in a semi-orderly fashion somewhere?
Or perhaps when the presence of polluted genetic material becomes too bad, do they decompose spontaneously?
Some day this will make a good novel.
ETA: After reading about pollinator decline, I am even more convinced.
ETA2: Randomly while reading about the Mary Celeste, I wonder if things are American-only in some cases, or if Americans are just much better about publicizing this sort of thing than other countries. It can't be that this is an American-only situation--that's just weird and wrong. So it must be the spread of news.
... right?
The question now is: where do they go? Do they die? Abandon ship and scatter in every and all direction? Migrate in a semi-orderly fashion somewhere?
Or perhaps when the presence of polluted genetic material becomes too bad, do they decompose spontaneously?
Some day this will make a good novel.
ETA: After reading about pollinator decline, I am even more convinced.
ETA2: Randomly while reading about the Mary Celeste, I wonder if things are American-only in some cases, or if Americans are just much better about publicizing this sort of thing than other countries. It can't be that this is an American-only situation--that's just weird and wrong. So it must be the spread of news.
... right?