INNOVATION FOR IMPROVED STRAWBERRY POLLINATION BY COMMERCIAL BUMBLEBEES USING CAFFEINE

昆虫，特别是蜜蜂的有效授粉对确保粮食安全和许多作物的产量至关重要。在英国，草莓等软质水果的年产量约为3.6亿英镑，虽然逐年增长，但严重依赖昆虫，尤其是蜜蜂的授粉。当授粉不足时，它经常导致畸形的果实。由于农业生态系统中野生传粉者数量不足，草莓种植者严重依赖商业购买的大黄蜂群体来改善授粉，但这并不总是足够的。尽管销售潜力不大，但畸形的水果仍然必须收获，以控制害虫，否则害虫就会聚集在它们身上，因此授粉不足给种植者带来了巨大的不必要的成本。成功的水果生产需要蜜蜂在同一作物品种的花之间携带花粉。觅食的蜜蜂通常专注于一种物种，这有助于确保花粉的传递。植物通过提供独特的线索，如蜜蜂记住的独特的花朵气味、颜色或形状，来鼓励蜜蜂的这种行为。低剂量的咖啡因使蜜蜂更准确地记住花香等线索，并增加蜜蜂的觅食活动。这个项目将调查是否有可能在草莓农场管理大黄蜂更喜欢在作物的花朵上觅食，以便更有效地授粉。该项目将开展实验，测试咖啡因在田间和实验室环境下改善作物授粉的能力。实验将为大黄蜂提供含咖啡因的花蜜和合成草莓花的香味。由于咖啡因能提高蜜蜂对花香的记忆，该项目将测试这些蜜蜂在接受这种启动处理后，是否会表现出更多的觅食活动和对草莓花的吸引力。我们预测，如果商业大黄蜂对草莓的偏好得到改善，蜜蜂将访问更多的花朵，更有效地为作物授粉，从而能够生产更高质量，更有价值的水果。这项技术的现场试验将在使用大黄蜂为草莓作物授粉的农场进行，测量这种大黄蜂引种技术带来的果实质量和产量。室外试验也将得到实验室和半现场实验的支持，以优化该系统，以获得最佳剂量和启动系统的时间。在与项目合作的私营部门利益相关者协商后，最终的经济评估将考虑使用咖啡因启动蜜蜂对农民的潜在经济效益。我们预计，大黄蜂提供的增强授粉服务的证据将提供一个引人注目的商业机会，增加蜂群供应的价值，并最终导致其他依赖传粉者的作物物种的授粉和坐果。

Efficient pollination by insects, especially bees, is critical to ensuring food security and yields of many crops. Production of soft fruit such as strawberries in the UK is worth around £360m annually, is growing year on year but depends heavily upon pollination by insects, particularly bees. When pollination is inadequate it frequently results in misshapen fruit. Owing to inadequate numbers of wild pollinators in agricultural ecosystems, strawberry growers rely heavily on commercially-bought colonies of bumblebees to try to improve pollination, but this is not always sufficient. Misshapen fruit must still be harvested despite poor sales potential in order to control pest insects that otherwise build up on them, so under-pollination causes a significant unwanted cost to growers.Successful fruit production requires bees to carry pollen between flowers of the same crop species. Foraging bees often specialise on one species, which helps ensure this pollen transfer. Plants encourage this by providing distinctive cues such as unique flower odours, colours or shape which bees remember. Low doses of caffeine make bees remember cues such as floral odour more accurately, and increase bees' foraging activity. This project will investigate whether it is possible to prime managed bumblebees on strawberry farms to prefer foraging on the flowers of the crop, in order to pollinate them more effectively.The project will carry out experiments to test the ability of caffeine to improve crop pollination in field and laboratory settings. Bumblebees will be provided experimentally with caffeinated nectar alongside a synthetic strawberry flower's scent. Since caffeine improves bees' memory for the scents of flowers, the project will test whether these bees show increased foraging activity and attraction to strawberry flowers when they receive this priming treatment. We predict that if the preference of commercial bumblebees for strawberries is improved, the bees will visit more flowers, be more efficient at pollinating the crop and thus will enable the production of higher-quality, more valuable fruit.Field tests of this technology will be performed on working farms using bumblebees to pollinate their strawberry crop, measuring fruit quality and yield resulting from this bumblebee-priming technology. The outdoor trials will also be supported by laboratory and semi-field experiments that optimise this system to get the best dose and timing of the priming system. A final economic assessment in consultation with the projects collaborative private sector stakeholders who have invested in this research will consider the potential financial benefits to the farmer of using caffeine-primed bees.We anticipate that evidence for enhanced pollination services delivered by bumblebees will provide a compelling commercial opportunity that adds value to bee colony provision and could ultimately lead to enhanced pollination and fruit set in other pollinator dependent crop species.