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

Get Book Here

Book Description

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

Get Book Here

Book Description


Pollination Efficacy of Honey Bees (Apis Mellifera L.) on Field-grown Triploid Watermelon

Pollination Efficacy of Honey Bees (Apis Mellifera L.) on Field-grown Triploid Watermelon PDF Author: Alton Denny Smith
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 114

Get Book Here

Book Description


Dissertation Abstracts International

Dissertation Abstracts International PDF Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Dissertations, Academic
Languages : en
Pages : 818

Get Book Here

Book Description


American Doctoral Dissertations

American Doctoral Dissertations PDF Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Dissertation abstracts
Languages : en
Pages : 816

Get Book Here

Book Description


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

Get Book Here

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.

Managing Alternative Pollinators

Managing Alternative Pollinators PDF Author: Eric Mader
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781933395203
Category : Bee culture
Languages : en
Pages : 162

Get Book Here

Book Description
"Examines the history of the British fire service from 1800-1980, embracing certain key themes of modern British history: the impact of industrial change on urban development, the effect of disaster on political reform, the growth of the state, and the relationship between masculinity and trade unionism in creating a professional identity"--Provided by publisher.

Bee Pollination in Agricultural Ecosystems

Bee Pollination in Agricultural Ecosystems PDF Author: Rosalind R. James
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0195316959
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 247

Get Book Here

Book Description
This book discusses the interplay among bees, agriculture and the environment. Both managed and wild bees are critical for successful pollination of numerous fruit, vegetable, oilseed and legume seed crops and are considered here. So is treatment of how bees also impact the agro-ecosystem in ways beyond simple pollination, such as by transporting pollen from genetically modified plants and by enhancing biological control strategies. The principles and examples are international. The concept is in line with current thinking of pollination as an important ecological process, and an understanding of agriculture as disturbance ecology.

Pressure on Pollinators

Pressure on Pollinators PDF Author: Kayla Mundy-Heisz
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages :

Get Book Here

Book Description
Bumblebees (Bombus spp.) pollinate a variety of wild floras and agricultural crops. However, some species are in decline due to a variety of interacting stressors: climate change, habitat loss and degradation, parasites and disease, and pesticides. Pesticides, particularly the neonicotinoids, a group of systemic insecticides, have been implicated in declines of European bumblebee species, but the effects of systemic insecticides are less clear for many North American species. One aim of this thesis was to determine the relative acute oral toxicity of systemic insecticides on Bombus impatiens (Cresson, 1863) workers in comparison to honey bee workers (Apis mellifera Linnaeus, 1758). Thiamethoxam was observed to be the most acutely toxic, followed by sulfoxaflor, flupyradifurone, and cyantraniliprole. A secondary aim was to determine if thiamethoxam fed to wild B. impatiens and Bombus bimaculatus (Cresson, 1864) queens for 14 days would result in any changes in the queen's ability to establish and maintain a colony for reproduction. However, many queens died during the experiment, preventing statistical analysis of the surviving colonies' outputs. In an ancillary aim to record parasite prevalence in queens, conopid larva and tracheal mites were not as commonly detected as nematodes and external mites. A third aim was to determine the usage of conventionally managed farm field margins by bumblebee queens. More bumblebee queens were observed foraging in farm field margins than in the paired natural areas, although more bumblebee queens were observed nest searching in the natural areas. A fourth aim was to compare the bumblebee species captured with different sampling techniques. Active (targeted netting) and passive (Blue Vane Traps, BVTs) sampling were completed in conventionally managed farms and paired natural areas. There were no differences in species richness caught between the two sampling techniques, however, when comparing sampling technique and site combinations, significantly greater species richness was found in passively sampled natural areas. In contrast, a significantly greater abundance of bumblebees was caught with active sampling in natural areas than in farms, but there was no difference between the sties when sampling with BVTs.

Pollination Biology

Pollination Biology PDF Author: Dharam P. Abrol
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 9400719426
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 812

Get Book Here

Book Description
This book has a wider approach not strictly focused on crop production compared to other books that are strictly oriented towards bees, but has a generalist approach to pollination biology. It also highlights relationships between introduced and wild pollinators and consequences of such introductions on communities of wild pollinating insects. The chapters on biochemical basis of plant-pollination interaction, pollination energetics, climate change and pollinators and pollinators as bioindicators of ecosystem functioning provide a base for future insights into pollination biology. The role of honeybees and wild bees on crop pollination, value of bee pollination, planned honeybee pollination, non-bee pollinators, safety of pollinators, pollination in cages, pollination for hybrid seed production, the problem of diseases, genetically modified plants and bees, the role of bees in improving food security and livelihoods, capacity building and awareness for pollinators are also discussed.

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 :

Get Book Here

Book Description
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.