According to a news release from the University of New Hampshire, an extensive extinction of bees that took place 65 million years ago, simultaneous with the event that took out land dinosaurs and numerous flowering plants, could help explain the current decline in bee species.

Sandra Rehan, an assistant professor of biological science at the University of New Hampshire, labored with her colleagues to model a mass extinction in carpenter bees at the end of the Cretaceous and start of the Paleogene eras, called the K-T boundary.

Earlier research has implied an extensive extinction among flowering plants at the K-T boundary, and it’s long been hypothesized that the bees who relied upon those plants would have suffered the same fate. However, “there is a relatively poor fossil record of bees,” notes Rehan, making the validation of such a dying out hard.

The researchers were able to get around the dearth of fossil evidence for bees with a method known as molecular phylogenetics. Examining DNA sequences of four “tribes” of 230 species of carpenter bees from every continent besides Antarctica for information about evolutionary relationships, the researchers started to observe patterns in keeping with a mass dying off. Bringing together fossil records with the DNA analysis, the researchers could add time into the formula, uncovering not only how the bees are connected but also how old they are.

“The data told us something major was happening in four different groups of bees at the same time,” posits Rehan. “And it happened to be the same time as the dinosaurs went extinct.”

This work pull’s from the computer-heavy bioinformatics side of Rehan’s research, gathering genomic data to explain in detail similarities and differences among the diverse species over time. Combining observations from the field with genomic data, Rehan notes, produces a better picture of these bees’ behaviors over time.

“If you could tell their whole story, maybe people would care more about protecting them,” she adds.

The researchers think that the results of this study have significant ramifications for today’s worry about the loss in diversity of bees, an important species for the agricultural industry.

“Understanding extinctions and the effects of declines in the past can help us understand the pollinator decline and the global crisis in pollinators today,” Rehan says.

According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Agricultural Research Service, Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) is a severe issue impacting the health of honey bees, as well as the economic security of commercial beekeeping and pollination operations in the U.S. The cause or causes of CCD have not been determined by researchers, but studies such as this one may help scientists figure out what is going on with the nation’s bee colonies before it is too late.

The study’s results are described in greater detail in the journal PLOS ONE.