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KEYWORDS Cardiovascular systems; honey bees
At a recent family dinner, we discussed the plight of honey bees. Everywhere bees are disappearing, and a new syndrome has been coined: "Colony collapse disorder." The etiology is unknown, though proposed causes include loss of habitat, parasites, and pesticides.
The conversation ended with agreement that the cause must be found and rectified. Knowing that I am a cardiologist, one young family member chirped in, "Maybe the honeybees are having heart attacks!" There was giggling and laughter. Kids love to be silly and say nonsensical things. "Honey bee poo!" What a ridiculous statement. Obviously, bees aren't sedentary, don't overeat, and are not known to smoke or develop diabetes. Do they even have hearts? Surely, they can't have heart attacks!
But how in the world would I know? Nothing in my training or clinical practice concerned honeybees. I know about Kounis syndrome: acute myocardial infarction brought on by bee stings,1 but this is something altogether different. If bees have hearts, and if they can have heart attacks, is it possible that humans are a cause? Could colony collapse syndrome be Kounis syndrome in reverse? Despite two decades spent caring for humans, I am no expert in the diseases of nonhuman animals, either large or small. So, what is true? And what is poo?
I decided to search for an answer using taxonomy. Over the last 300 years, scientists have systematically categorized all living creatures, placing them into categories using a method developed by a Swedish scientist named Carl Linnaeus in the 1700s. His method created a tree of life with branches that connect all living things. At first, his tree had only two branches: plant kingdom and animal kingdom. With the advent of microscopy, more forms of life have been discovered and new branches added, including eukaryotes, prokaryotes, protists, fungi, and archaebacteria. The branch of animals divides into phylum, class, order, family, genus, and species. It is a remarkable system that predates genetics or the discovery of DNA. All organisms within a classification have certain shared characteristics. All plants, for example, are autotrophs capable of making their own food. The animal kingdom contains heterotrophs, organisms that rely on intake of nutrition from external sources. In general, animals eat other organisms,...