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Tag Archives: plasticity

Plastic Honeybees

Photo of a large, plastic, toy honeybee.

Plastic honeybee (available from anwo.com).

Bees are plastic!

Well, they’re not actually made out of plastic (at least not usually), I mean the other meaning of plastic: easily shaped or moulded.

One set of genes can develop into one of a variety of slightly different bodies, depending on what environment those genes are exposed to. This plasticity is part of how an organism adapts to changes in their environment.

In other words, bees can change their bodies when something in their environment changes. And this happens without the bees changing their genes. Continue reading