In Science this week, Cornell University investigators publish a study using genomic, community, and agricultural datasets to link land use to a reduction in bee phylogenetic diversity and pollination services. The scientists combine data from the genomic bee tree of life with extensive pollinator community and pollination datasets on 27 apple orchards in New York state, and find that species loss due to agriculturally driven land use change had a great effect on pollinator phylogeny. This, they say, has led to the loss of millions of years of pollinator evolutionary history and more closely related remaining bee species. The findings show that "measuring conservation success by species counts alone may fail to protect ecosystem functions and the full diversity of life from which they are derive," the authors write.
And in Science Advances, a team of Japanese scientists reports a new flow cytometry approach for label-free molecular fingerprinting. The method involves a high-throughput Raman flow cytometer on a microfluidic chip that chemically probes single live cells, and uses a rapid-scan Fourier-transform coherent anti-Stokes Raman scattering spectrometer as an optical interrogator. To demonstrate their technique, the scientists demonstrate high-throughput label-free single-cell analysis of the astaxanthin productivity and photosynthetic dynamics of green algae.