Bumble Bee (bombus Impatiens) Pollination of Field Crops in the State of California

Bumble Bee (bombus Impatiens) Pollination of Field Crops in the State of California PDF Author: California. Department of Food and Agriculture
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Bumblebees
Languages : en
Pages : 37

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Bumble Bee (bombus Impatiens) Pollination of Field Crops in the State of California

Bumble Bee (bombus Impatiens) Pollination of Field Crops in the State of California PDF Author: California. Department of Food and Agriculture
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Bumblebees
Languages : en
Pages : 37

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An Ecological Risk Analysis for the Use of Bombus Impatiens for Pollination of Field Crops in California

An Ecological Risk Analysis for the Use of Bombus Impatiens for Pollination of Field Crops in California PDF Author: California. Department of Food and Agriculture
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Bumblebees
Languages : en
Pages : 28

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Bumblebees

Bumblebees PDF Author: Dave Goulson
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 9780198526070
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 260

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Book Description
Bumblebees are undergoing a widespread decline, but this has not yet caught the attention of the general public to the same extent as, for example, the plight of rare butterflies or birds. This title attempts to draw attention to the importance of conserving dwindling bumblebee populations.

Status of Pollinators in North America

Status of Pollinators in North America PDF Author: National Research Council
Publisher: National Academies Press
ISBN: 0309102898
Category : Technology & Engineering
Languages : en
Pages : 327

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Book Description
Pollinators-insects, birds, bats, and other animals that carry pollen from the male to the female parts of flowers for plant reproduction-are an essential part of natural and agricultural ecosystems throughout North America. For example, most fruit, vegetable, and seed crops and some crops that provide fiber, drugs, and fuel depend on animals for pollination. This report provides evidence for the decline of some pollinator species in North America, including America's most important managed pollinator, the honey bee, as well as some butterflies, bats, and hummingbirds. For most managed and wild pollinator species, however, population trends have not been assessed because populations have not been monitored over time. In addition, for wild species with demonstrated declines, it is often difficult to determine the causes or consequences of their decline. This report outlines priorities for research and monitoring that are needed to improve information on the status of pollinators and establishes a framework for conservation and restoration of pollinator species and communities.

Attracting Native Pollinators

Attracting Native Pollinators PDF Author: The Xerces Society
Publisher: Storey Publishing, LLC
ISBN: 1603427473
Category : Technology & Engineering
Languages : en
Pages : 385

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Book Description
With the recent decline of the European honey bee, it is more important than ever to encourage the activity of other native pollinators to keep your flowers beautiful and your grains and produce plentiful. In Attracting Native Pollinators, you’ll find ideas for building nesting structures and creating a welcoming habitat for an array of diverse pollinators that includes not only bees, but butterflies, moths, and more. Take action and protect North America’s food supply for the future, while at the same time enjoying a happily bustling landscape.

Insect Pollination of Cultivated Crop Plants

Insect Pollination of Cultivated Crop Plants PDF Author: Samuel Emmett McGregor
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Abeille
Languages : en
Pages : 440

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Bumble Bees of the Western United States

Bumble Bees of the Western United States PDF Author: Jonathan Koch
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Bumblebees
Languages : en
Pages : 144

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Honey Bee (apis Mellifera L.) and Bumble Bee (Bombus Impatiens Cresson) Pollination Efficacy on Field-grown Cucumber and Watermelon

Honey Bee (apis Mellifera L.) and Bumble Bee (Bombus Impatiens Cresson) Pollination Efficacy on Field-grown Cucumber and Watermelon PDF Author: Michael Scott Stanghellini
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Bumblebees
Languages : en
Pages : 216

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Pollination Services, Colony Abundances and Population Genetics of Bombus Impatiens

Pollination Services, Colony Abundances and Population Genetics of Bombus Impatiens PDF Author: Carlene McGrady
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages :

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Although recent studies suggest that native bees are likely supplying sufficient pollination services in Cucurbita agroecosystems, commercial pumpkin growers in Pennsylvania are spending thousands of dollars renting managed honey bees to insure adequate pollination. Here, we evaluate the ability of native bee populations to respond to increasing floral resources in a mass-flowering crop such as pumpkins, and the effect of temporal and spatial variables on pollination services supplied by native bees. We catalogued a surprisingly large community comprised of 37 species of native bees foraging in commercial pumpkin fields. Honey bees (Apis mellifera), Squash bees (Peponapis pruinosa) and Bumble bees (Bombus spp., primarily B. impatiens) were the most active pollinator taxa, contributing over 95% of all pollination services. We then examine the effect of distance from field edge on flower sex preferences using chi-squared tests and visitation rates using regression for the most active taxa. While visitation rates were not significantly impacted by distance from field edge, A. mellifera and Bombus preference for female flowers decreased as distance from field edge increased. We also evaluate the effect of field size, day of year and floral density on visitation rates using regression. Bombus visitation rates decreased as field size increased. Both A. mellifera and Bombus spp. visitation rates exhibited a curvilinear response as the growing season progressed and both responded positively to increasing floral density. We synthesized existing literature to estimate minimum pollination thresholds per taxa and calculated that A. mellifera, Bombus and P. pruinosa were each providing 10x, 12.75x and 1.8x the necessary pollination services, respectively. The relationship between visitation rates and pumpkin yield metrics were examined with principal components and correlation analysis for each year separately. Bombus spp. visitation rates positively influenced seed set and pumpkin weight in some years. P. pruinosa visitation rates positively influenced fruit per square meter in some years. A. mellifera visitation rates were never positively associated with any yield metric. This study provides strong evidence that native pollinators are sufficient for pumpkin pollination services in most settings, but managed pollinators should be considered for larger fields (> 3 - 4 ha), depending on configuration. These results have important implications for pollination management decisions and further highlights the importance of monitoring and conserving native pollinator populations. To evaluate the reliability of pollination services provided by wild B. impatiens, we estimate the abundance of Bombus impatiens colonies providing foragers for pollination services using a genetic technique known as microsatellite analysis. Microsatellite analysis is an important genetic tool with previous studies publishing guidelines for optimizing multiplexes and checklists for monitoring potentially biased loci. In this study, we proposed a standardized workflow for evaluating microsatellite loci for 5 common issues and demonstrate using the workflow to trial 14 non-species-specific loci for use in Bombus impatiens, an ecologically and economically important pollinator. We examined the DNA of > 6000 B. impatiens individuals collected from 30 sites over 4 years. We evaluated each locus for evidence of allelic drift, monomorphism, frequency of null alleles, Hardy-Weinberg disequilibrium and linkage disequilibrium. During this process, we propose a new method to visualize and account for allelic drift, which enabled us to efficiently eliminate one locus from our multi-plex, BL15. We found that BT28 was an extensively monomorphic locus. Including the monomorphic locus predictably decreased overall genetic diversity, but it did not alter patterns of genetic diversity between sites. Furthermore, monomorphic loci did not substantially impact the ability to identify genetically related foragers. Five loci exhibited isolated instances of null alleles in less than 10% of sites. One loci, BTMS0081 exhibited universal deviation from Hardy-Weinberg, but it was driven by only 2 sites. Several loci pairs were universally linked, but each linkage was driven by only 1 or 2 sites and including linked pairs had little impact on subsequent results. Implementing this systematic workflow will promote standardized methods to evaluate the extent of potentially biased loci and report the severity of the impacts on subsequent analyses. Furthermore, we can now provide a rigorously tested and thoroughly optimized multiplex of 11 microsatellite loci for use in Bombus impatiens (and potentially other Bombus species), saving financial resources and research hours for future researchers. We analyzed the genotypes generated from this optimized multiplex to test hypotheses about the abundance of B. impatiens colonies providing foragers to pumpkin fields and population genetics. Current studies assume conserving and promoting wild bumble bee colony abundance will result in increased economic and ecological benefits in the form of stable or increased pollination services, but the relationship between colony abundance and pollination services is understudied, particularly in agroecosystems. Bombus impatiens, the common eastern bumble bee, is an important pollinator in the eastern United States with recent studies proposing that the agriculture industry integrate these native bees into their pollination management strategies. However, studies regarding B. impatiens population abundance and genetic status are limited.We used microsatellite analysis and statistical models to estimate the number of B. impatiens colonies providing foragers to 30 commercial pumpkin fields in Pennsylvania and found foragers from 543.7 21.7 SE (range of 291 to 891) colonies per field. Average colony abundance per field was not affected by year (n = 4), or geographic region (n=3), indicating a temporally and spatially stable population of native pollinators. We used our large sample size to evaluate the influence of low levels of polygamy on estimating colony abundance, and showed that monogamy is a reasonable and conservative assumption for estimating colony abundance of B. impatiens. We tested for evidence of genetic differentiation using G-statistics and analysis of molecular variance and evaluated genetic diversity using expected heterozygosity and allelic richness. We confirmed previous assumptions that B. impatiens is a single, panmictic population throughout our study region of 5,000 square km and is characterized by relatively high genetic diversity, indicating a genetically resilient population with the potential to respond to selective pressures in the future. We also measured Bombus visitation rates to pumpkin flowers in a subset of 24 fields and found 0.3 0.05SE bee visits per flower per 45secons. We examined the relationship between colony abundance on a per field and per hectare basis, against visitation rates as a metric of the ecosystem service of pollination. We found that colony abundance per hectare accounted for 23% of the variation in visitation rates, indicating that wild bumble bee colony abundance, mediated by field size, positively impacts pollination services in agroecosystems. We use these relationships to discuss the influence of a mass flowering crop on colony-level abundances of a wild, native, eusocial species.

Bumblebees

Bumblebees PDF Author: Dave Goulson
Publisher: Oxford University Press on Demand
ISBN: 0199553068
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 330

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Book Description
This book provides a concise and readable summary of the ecology and behaviour of bumblebees, with a particular focus on practical issues such as conservation strategies, management of bumblebees for crop pollination, and the possible impacts of bumblebees as non-native invasive species.