Pheromones, Pathogens and Pesticides: How do these interact to affect the health and productivity of social and solitary bees?

蜜蜂、大黄蜂和其他蜜蜂物种正面临着疾病、农药暴露和栖息地丧失等多种威胁。这些威胁导致蜜蜂数量惊人地下降，这是对粮食安全、生物多样性和保护的担忧。也许最著名的和最重要的授粉蜜蜂物种是蜜蜂，Apis mellifera。蜜蜂和大黄蜂是全球管理最广泛的传粉者物种，许多关于蜜蜂的研究都集中在这两个物种上。这些蜜蜂都是“群居的”——它们生活在数百到数千只个体的群体中。在每个蚁群中，只有一只繁殖活跃的雌蜂负责大部分的繁殖工作，而工蜂则负责大多数其他的蚁群任务。因为这些群居蜜蜂生活在大的群体中，它们很容易受到疾病的影响，尤其是蜜蜂，通常受到几种病毒和寄生虫的折磨。信息素在所有昆虫中都至关重要，尤其是在群居蜜蜂中，它是一种主要的沟通手段，调节着蜂巢中的一系列行为，包括照顾蜂王、建造蜂巢和分工。蜂群中信息素调节的行为与杀虫剂的亚致死效应（如觅食活动、蔗糖敏感性和繁殖）有很大的重叠，这导致了一种新的假设，即杀虫剂的一些亚致死效应是由蜂群中产生的信息素调节的。信息素对独居物种也同样重要，在吸引配偶方面起着重要作用。英国也是250种独居蜜蜂的家园——这些蜜蜂一生中大部分时间都是独自生活，只有在交配时才聚在一起，雌性个体觅食、产卵和为后代收集食物。许多独居的蜜蜂使用同样的花朵，蜜蜂和大黄蜂，因此暴露于相同的杀虫剂，甚至可能暴露于通过间接传播从群居蜜蜂传播的病原体。然而，我们不知道这些环境压力是否或如何影响独居蜜蜂的健康、交配和繁殖。该项目将结合行为生态学和分子方法，通过实验室和实地研究相结合，了解信息素、杀虫剂和常见疾病如何影响群居蜜蜂（大黄蜂和蜜蜂）和独居蜜蜂（如红石匠蜂）。

Honeybees, bumblebees and other bee species are facing a multitude of threats from disease, pesticide exposure and loss of habitat. These threats have resulted in alarming declines in bee numbers, which is a concern for food security, biodiversity and conservation. Probably the best known and arguably the most important bee species for pollination is the honeybee, Apis mellifera. The honeybee and the bumblebee are the most extensively managed pollinator species globally and much of the research on bees has focussed on these two species. These bees are both 'eusocial' - they live in colonies with hundreds to thousands of individuals. In each colony, there is only one reproductively active female who is responsible for the majority of reproduction and workers carry out most other colony tasks. Because these eusocial bees live in large colonies they are susceptible to diseases, and honeybees, in particular, are commonly afflicted with several viruses and parasites.Pheromones are crucially important in all insects but especially in eusocial bees and act as a as primary means of communication regulating a range of behaviours in the hive including, looking after the queen, comb building and division of labour. There is substantial overlap in the behaviours modulated by pheromones in the hive and the sub-lethal effects of pesticides e.g. foraging activity, sucrose sensitivity and reproduction leading to the novel hypothesis that some of the sub-lethal effects of pesticides are modulated by pheromones produced within the colony. Pheromones are equally important for solitary species too and play an important role in mate attraction. The UK is also home to 250 species of solitary bees - these bees spend the majority of their lives on their own, only getting together to mate, and individual females forage, lay eggs and collect provisions for their offspring. Many of these solitary bees use the same flowers and honeybees and bumblebees, and so are exposed to the same pesticides and may even be exposed to the pathogens transmitted from eusocial bees via indirect transmission. Yet, we don't know if or how these environmental stressors affect the health, mating and reproduction of solitary bees. This project will combine behavioural ecology with molecular approaches to understand how pheromones, pesticides and common diseases affect social (bumblebees and honeybees) and solitary bees (e.g. the red mason bee) using a combination of laboratory and field-studies.