Anthropogenic land-use changes as a key challenge for honeybee foraging and health

人为土地利用变化是蜜蜂觅食和健康的关键挑战

• 批准号: BB/W001977/1
• 负责人: Christoph Grueter
• 金额: $ 54.59万
• 依托单位: University of Bristol
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Research Grant
• 财政年份: 2022
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2022 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=BB%2FW001977%2F1
• 关键词: Anthropogenic; land; use; changes; key

Interest in bees has been growing in recent years, mainly because it has become clear that bees are having an increasingly hard time in the modern world and that humans are responsible for, and affected by, a decline in the number and diversity of pollinators. The honeybee (Apis mellifera) is a pollinator of particular importance for many agricultural crops and natural plants, but declining or stagnating colony numbers, in combination with an increasing reliance on bee-pollinated crops, have led to worries about their pollination services in many areas, including the UK. Honeybees face numerous new challenges in our modern world, including pesticides, climate change and emerging diseases. A key challenge is rapid environmental change, mainly the conversion of natural and semi-natural land into urban or intensively farmed land. Honeybees might simply no longer find enough food in many modern landscapes. This results in nutritional stress, which is linked to increased susceptibility to diseases and parasites. Since honeybee diseases can spill over to wild bees, poor honeybee health is of a wider epidemiological concern for the conservation of pollinator communities. A potentially important, but unexplored reason for poor colony nutrition is the honeybee's unique foraging method. Honeybees use the famous waggle dance to communicate about high-quality food sources. Karl von Frisch made the Nobel Prize-winning discovery that, while dancing, bees transmit information about the direction and distance of the food source to surrounding bees. He called this the "dance language". This communication helps colonies to exploit the best food sources in their environment, but it is also inherently time-consuming because other bees wait inside the hive for dance information. Computer simulations and empirical research have demonstrated that the "dance language" can be detrimental to colony success in some habitats, potentially resulting in a poor nutritional state. We propose an ambitious experimental approach to test the hypothesis that the honeybee "dance language" is no longer beneficial in many modern landscapes and significantly contributes to nutritional stress and poor health. We will interrupt dance communication and measure how this affects the quantity and diversity of collected food sources and the health of colonies in different landscape types - (1) urban, (2) agricultural and (3) semi-natural - in 24 different sites across the southwest of England. Specifically, we will explore how land-use and communication affect the prevalence of important drivers of honeybee colony loss in the UK, including Varroa mites and deformed wing virus (DWV). Next-generation-sequencing will be used to test how the different experimental conditions affect the expression of health-relevant genes and laboratory learning tests will establish whether the cognitive performance of bees is related to land-use, communication treatment and the nutritional state of colonies. The results are expected to transform our understanding of how anthropogenic land-use affects the ability of honeybees to exploit food sources and they will allow us to predict how anthropogenic landscape changes will affect bee health.

近年来，人们对蜜蜂的兴趣越来越大，主要是因为蜜蜂在现代世界的日子越来越不好过，而传粉媒介的数量和多样性下降，人类负有责任，也受到了影响。蜜蜂（Apis mellifera）是对许多农作物和自然植物特别重要的传粉者，但蜂群数量的下降或停滞，加上对蜜蜂授粉作物的日益依赖，导致许多地区（包括英国）对它们的授粉服务感到担忧。在我们的现代世界，蜜蜂面临着许多新的挑战，包括杀虫剂、气候变化和新出现的疾病。一个关键的挑战是迅速的环境变化，主要是自然和半自然土地转变为城市或集约耕地。在许多现代景观中，蜜蜂可能再也找不到足够的食物了。这导致营养压力，这与疾病和寄生虫的易感性增加有关。由于蜜蜂疾病可以蔓延到野生蜜蜂，蜜蜂健康状况不佳对传粉昆虫群落的保护是一个更广泛的流行病学关注。蜂群营养不良的一个潜在的重要原因是蜜蜂独特的觅食方式。蜜蜂用著名的摇摆舞来交流高质量的食物来源。卡尔·冯·弗里施（Karl von Frisch）获得诺贝尔奖的发现是，蜜蜂在跳舞时，会把食物来源的方向和距离的信息传递给周围的蜜蜂。他称之为“舞蹈语言”。这种交流有助于蜂群在它们的环境中寻找最好的食物来源，但它本身也很耗时，因为其他蜜蜂在蜂巢里等待舞蹈信息。计算机模拟和实证研究表明，在某些栖息地，这种“舞蹈语言”可能不利于种群的成功，可能导致营养不良。我们提出了一个雄心勃勃的实验方法来验证蜜蜂的“舞蹈语言”在许多现代景观中不再有益，并显著导致营养压力和健康状况不佳的假设。我们将在英格兰西南部的24个不同地点中断舞蹈交流，并测量这对不同景观类型(1)城市，（2)农业和(3)半自然）中收集的食物来源的数量和多样性以及殖民地健康的影响。具体来说，我们将探讨土地利用和通信如何影响英国蜜蜂群体损失的重要驱动因素，包括瓦螨和变形翼病毒（DWV）。下一代测序将用于测试不同的实验条件如何影响健康相关基因的表达，实验室学习测试将确定蜜蜂的认知表现是否与土地利用、沟通处理和蜂群营养状况有关。研究结果有望改变我们对人为土地利用如何影响蜜蜂寻找食物来源能力的理解，并使我们能够预测人为景观变化将如何影响蜜蜂的健康。

项目成果

Diverse communication strategies in bees as a window into adaptations to an unpredictable world.

• DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2219031120
• 发表时间: 2023-06-13
• 期刊: PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
• 影响因子: 11.1
• 作者: Alves, Denise A.;George, Ebi A.;Kaur, Rajbir;Brockmann, Axel;Hrncir, Michael;Gruter, Christoph
• 通讯作者: Gruter, Christoph