PoshBee - Effects of chemicals and their interactions on bees
Pan-European assessment, monitoring,
and mitigation of stressors on the health of bees.
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Team: Prof. Dr. Alexandra-Maria Klein Dr. Giovanni Tamburini (2019) Dr. Dimitry Wintermantel (since 2020) Dr. Maria-Helena Pereira-Peixoto (2019/2020) Dr. Julia Ostermann (2021) Dipl. Biol. Anna-Maria Bleile (2022) |
Duration: 2018 - 2023 Funding: EU | ||
| Bees – honey bees, bumble bees, and solitary bees – pollinate our crops and wildflowers, and thus are essential for human well-being. However, in Europe, and around the globe, bees face many threats and are often in decline as a result. One potential driver of reduced bee health is agrochemicals. While laboratory and semi-field studies suggest that such chemicals negatively impact bee health, their importance and relevance in the real world remains unclear. PoshBee is a consortium of academics, governmental organisations, industry, and NGOs that will address the issue of agrochemicals to ensure the sustainable health of bees and their pollination services in Europe. Integrating the knowledge and experience of local beekeeping and farming organisations and academic researchers (including the EU RefLab for bee health), we will provide the first comprehensive pan-European assessment of the exposure hazard of chemicals, their mixtures, and co-occurrence with pathogens and nutritional stress for solitary, bumble, and honey bees across two major cropping systems. Integrated studies across the lab-to-field axis will determine the effect of chemicals, their mixtures, and interactions with pathogens and nutrition on bee health. "Annual Meeting of PoshBee's full project assembly, Marseille, France,14.01. - 16.01. 2020" press release: EU-funded Horizon 2020 project PoshBee gathers in Marseille to discuss all things bee health "Annual Meeting of PoshBee's full project assembly, online 11.01. - 13.01. 2022" 13.01.2021 video: PoshBee field and semi-field experiments: University of Freiburg 20.04.2022 Press release Dr. Dimitry Wintermantel & Prof. Alexandra Maria Klein Re4sults from the PoshBee project: Bumblebees’ nutrition influences their pesticide resistance Effects of a common fungicide differ depending on the plant to which it is applied
We will combine the skills of commercial bumble bee and solitary bee producers, ecotoxicological industry, and academics to develop new model species and innovative protocols for testing chemicals in bees. With MUSTB, we will integrate this information to develop dynamic landscape environmental risk assessment models for bees. Using proteomics, we will produce new molecular markers for assessing bee health and enabling long-term monitoring schemes. Finally, combining across our partners and stakeholder board, we will deliver practice- and policy-relevant research outputs to local, national, European, and global stakeholders. Together, our work will support healthy bee populations, sustainable beekeeping, and sustainable pollination across Europe.
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Publications
- Schwarz, J.M., Knauer, A.C., Allan, M.J., Dean, R.R., Ghazoul, J., Tamburini, G., Wintermantel, D., Klein, A.M. & Albrecht, M. (2022): No evidence for impaired solitary bee fitness following pre-flowering sulfoxaflor application alone or in combination with a common fungicide in a semi-field experiment. Environment International 164: 107252. Link
- Wintermantel, D., Pereira-Peixoto, M.H., Warth, N., Melcher, K., Faller, M., Feurer, J., Allan, M.J., Dean, R., Tamburini, G., Knauer, A.C., Schwarz, J.M., Albrecht, M. & Klein, A.M. (2022): Flowering resources modulate the sensitivity of bumblebees to a common fungicide. Science of The Total Environment 829: 154450. Link
- Brown, M., Breeze, T., Bulet, P., Chauzat, M.P., Demirova, I., de Miranda, J., Klein, A.M., Mand, M., Metodiev, T., Michez, D., Nazzi, F., Neumann, P., Paxton, R., Potts, S., Stout, J., Turney, G. & Yañez, O. (2021): PoshBee: Pan-European assessment, monitoring, and mitigation of stressors on the health of bees. ARPHA preprints. online first. doi: 10.3897/arphapreprints.e72231. Link
- Tamburini, G., Pereira-Peixoto, M.H., Borth, J., Lotz, S., Wintermantel, D., Allan, M.J., Dean, R., Schwarz J.M., Knauer, A., Albrecht, M. & Klein, A.M. (2021): Fungicide and insecticide exposure adversely impacts bumblebees and pollination services under semi-field conditions. Environment International 157: 106813. Link
- Tamburini, G., Wintermantel, D., Allan, M.J., Dean, R.R., Knauer, A., Albrecht, M. & Klein, A.M. (2021): Sulfoxaflor insecticide and azoxystrobin fungicide have no major impact on honeybees in a realistic-exposure semi-field experiment. Science of the Total Environment 778: 146084. Link
- Vanderplanck, M., Michez, D., […] Klein, A.M., […] Pereira-Peixoto, M.H. et al. & Gérard, M. (2021): Monitoring bee health in European agro-ecosystems using wing morphology and fat bodies. One Ecosystem 6: e63653. Link