Polluted Scents

Ozone and other constituents of smog destroy at least some of the floral perfumes that pollinators rely on to find their meals, scientists report.

Bees might suffer some from the effects of these smog constituents, which pollute urban and rural areas alike. But the foragers most likely to be confused by air pollution’s degradation of floral scents, entomologists suspect, are pollinators that rely less on sight than bees do to find nectar.