Assessing the pollination efficiency of different species of bees on buzz-pollinated plants of agricultural significance

蜜蜂在自然和农业系统中都提供重要的授粉服务。最近世界各地蜜蜂数量的下降令人担忧，这凸显了了解花和蜜蜂在授粉过程中相互作用的重要性。尽管许多蜜蜂，包括那些作为补充传粉者的蜜蜂，都是通才传粉者，但并非所有的蜜蜂都能提供所有的传粉服务。例如，蜜蜂不能嗡嗡传粉，这种传粉需要蜜蜂用胸部肌肉产生高频振动来为特定的花朵授粉。有超过2万种植物需要蜜蜂授粉，包括西红柿、茄子和猕猴桃等作物。然而，我们对不同种类的蜜蜂为这些特殊的花朵授粉的能力知之甚少。该项目将调查野生和圈养传粉媒介（大黄蜂和蜜蜂）为自然和农业系统授粉的能力。我们将研究不同种类的大黄蜂在嗡嗡传粉的能力上是否存在差异，以及非嗡嗡传粉者（如蜜蜂）的存在是否阻碍或有利于野生和作物物种的授粉。该项目汇集了授粉专家（Willmer教授）、植物繁殖和嗡嗡授粉专家（D. Vallejo-Marin教授）、本地蜜蜂和植物繁殖专家（Quezada Euan教授）。现场试验将在苏格兰和墨西哥的尤卡坦半岛与我们的当地合作者进行。我们将采用实验方法来研究授粉服务，包括蜜蜂行为的实验室实验，以及野生和作物物种的田间试验。在墨西哥实地考察期间，我们将在自然植物群落和农田中进行社区水平的野生蜜蜂调查。作为农业系统，我们将重点关注番茄和哈瓦那辣椒，这两种作物在国内或全球市场上都是重要的经济作物。我们的工作将评估传粉者的行为和多样性对这些作物生产力的影响。

Bees provide essential pollination services in both natural and agricultural systems. The recent and worrying decline in bee populations around the world has highlighted the importance of understanding the interaction of flowers and bees during pollination. Although many bees, including those used as supplemental pollinators, are generalist pollinators, not all bees can provide all pollination services. For example, honeybees are incapable of buzz pollination, a type of pollination that involves bees producing high frequency vibrations with their thoracic muscles to pollinate specialised flowers. There are more than 20,000 species of plants that require buzz pollination, including crops such as tomato, eggplant and kiwi. Yet, we know relatively little about the capacity of different species of bees to pollinate these specialised flowers. This project will investigate the capacity of wild and captive pollinators (bumblebees and honeybees) to pollinate natural and agricultural systems. We will investigate whether different species of bumblebees differ in the capacity to buzz pollinate flowers, and whether the presence of non-buzz-pollinators such as Apis mellifera, hinder or benefit pollination of wild and crop species. The project brings together experts in pollination (Prof. Willmer), plant reproduction and buzz pollination (D. Vallejo-Marin), native bees and plant reproduction (Prof. Quezada Euan. Field trials will be conducted in Scotland and in the Yucatan Peninsula in Mexico with our local collaborators. We will use an experimental approach to study pollination services involving both laboratory experiments of bee behaviour, and field trials of wild and crop species. During fieldwork in Mexico, we will conduct community-level surveys of wild bees in natural plant communities and agricultural fields. As agricultural systems, we will focus on tomato and Habanero chilli pepper , both of which are important commercial crops in either national or global markets. Our work will assess the effect of pollinator behaviour and diversity on the productivity of these crops.