Honey bee colony performance and health are enhanced by apiary proximity to US Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) lands.
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ABSTRACT:
SUBMITTER: Ricigliano VA
PROVIDER: S-EPMC6426953 | biostudies-literature |
REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature
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Project description:A present goal of the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) is to manage land in agricultural landscapes to increase pollinator abundance and diversity. CP42, or the pollinator seed mix, is planted and managed to support foraging pollinators with blooming flowers present at all points in the foraging season. This high-quality habitat provides an excellent opportunity to study honey bee nutrition and determine whether honey bees located near CRP sites use known resources included in planting seed mixes. This study aims to highlight the primary sources of honey bee forage in the northern Midwest as well as to assess honey bee utilization of the floral resources provided by the pollinator seed mix used for CRP plantings. We received pollen samples collected using pollen traps by beekeepers in Ohio, South Dakota, Indiana, Illinois, and Michigan. Metabarcoding methods were used to identify and quantify pollen collected at different points in the season. The results indicate that honey bees frequently used major mass flowering resources such as Glycine, Trifolium, and Symphiotrichum throughout the season. In addition, flowers included in the CRP pollinator seed mix were used modestly. These results have implications for pollinator seed mix design.
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Project description:Over 13 million ha of former cropland are enrolled in the US Conservation Reserve Program (CRP), providing well-recognized biodiversity, water quality, and carbon (C) sequestration benefits that could be lost on conversion back to agricultural production. Here we provide measurements of the greenhouse gas consequences of converting CRP land to continuous corn, corn-soybean, or perennial grass for biofuel production. No-till soybeans preceded the annual crops and created an initial carbon debt of 10.6 Mg CO(2) equivalents (CO(2)e)·ha(-1) that included agronomic inputs, changes in C stocks, altered N(2)O and CH(4) fluxes, and foregone C sequestration less a fossil fuel offset credit. Total debt, which includes future debt created by additional changes in soil C stocks and the loss of substantial future soil C sequestration, can be constrained to 68 Mg CO(2)e·ha(-1) if subsequent crops are under permanent no-till management. If tilled, however, total debt triples to 222 Mg CO(2)e·ha(-1) on account of further soil C loss. Projected C debt repayment periods under no-till management range from 29 to 40 y for corn-soybean and continuous corn, respectively. Under conventional tillage repayment periods are three times longer, from 89 to 123 y, respectively. Alternatively, the direct use of existing CRP grasslands for cellulosic feedstock production would avoid C debt entirely and provide modest climate change mitigation immediately. Incentives for permanent no till and especially permission to harvest CRP biomass for cellulosic biofuel would help to blunt the climate impact of future CRP conversion.
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Project description:Strength auditing of European honey bee (Apis mellifera Linnaeus, 1758 [Hymenoptera: Apidae]) colonies is critical for apiarists to manage colony health and meet pollination contracts conditions. Colony strength assessments used during pollination servicing in Australia typically use a frame-top cluster-count (Number of Frames) inspection. Sensing technology has potential to improve auditing processes, and commercial temperature sensors are widely available. We evaluate the use and placement of temperature sensing technology in colony strength assessment and identify key parameters linking temperature to colony strength. Custom-built temperature sensors measured hive temperature across the top of hive brood boxes. A linear mixed-effect model including harmonic sine and cosine curves representing diurnal temperature fluctuations in hives was used to compare Number of Frames with temperature sensor data. There was a significant effect of presence of bees on hive temperature and range: hives without bees recorded a 5.5°C lower mean temperature and greater temperature ranges than hives containing live bees. Hives without bees reach peak temperature earlier than hives with bees, regardless of colony strength. Sensor placement across the width of the hive was identified as an important factor when linking sensor data with colony strength. Data from sensors nearest to the hive geometric center were found to be more closely linked to colony strength. Furthermore, a one unit increase in Number of Frames was significantly associated with a mean temperature increase of 0.36°C. This demonstrates that statistical models that account for diurnal temperature patterns could be used to predict colony strength from temperature sensor data.
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Project description:Honey bee (Apis mellifera) colonies continue to experience high annual losses that remain poorly explained. Numerous interacting factors have been linked to colony declines. Understanding the pathways linking pathophysiology with symptoms is an important step in understanding the mechanisms of disease. In this study we examined the specific pathologies associated with honey bees collected from colonies suffering from Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) and compared these with bees collected from apparently healthy colonies. We identified a set of pathological physical characteristics that occurred at different rates in CCD diagnosed colonies prior to their collapse: rectum distension, Malpighian tubule iridescence, fecal matter consistency, rectal enteroliths (hard concretions), and venom sac color. The multiple differences in rectum symptomology in bees from CCD apiaries and colonies suggest effected bees had trouble regulating water. To ensure that pathologies we found associated with CCD were indeed pathologies and not due to normal changes in physical appearances that occur as an adult bee ages (CCD colonies are assumed to be composed mostly of young bees), we documented the changes in bees of different ages taken from healthy colonies. We found that young bees had much greater incidences of white nodules than older cohorts. Prevalent in newly-emerged bees, these white nodules or cellular encapsulations indicate an active immune response. Comparing the two sets of characteristics, we determined a subset of pathologies that reliably predict CCD status rather than bee age (fecal matter consistency, rectal distension size, rectal enteroliths and Malpighian tubule iridescence) and that may serve as biomarkers for colony health. In addition, these pathologies suggest that CCD bees are experiencing disrupted excretory physiology. Our identification of these symptoms is an important first step in understanding the physiological pathways that underlie CCD and factors impacting bee health.
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Project description:Honey bees (Apis mellifera) are prominent crop pollinators and are, thus, important for effective food production. The honey bee gut microbiota is mainly host specific, with only a few species being shared with other insects. It currently remains unclear how environmental/dietary conditions affect the microbiota within a honey bee population over time. Therefore, the aim of the present study was to characterize the composition of the midgut/pyloric microbiota of a honey bee apiary throughout a season. The rationale for investigating the midgut/pyloric microbiota is its dynamic nature. Monthly sampling of a demographic homogenous population of bees was performed between May and October, with concordant recording of the honey bee diet. Mixed Sanger-and Illumina 16S rRNA gene sequencing in combination with a quantitative PCR analysis were used to determine the bacterial composition. A marked increase in ?-diversity was detected between May and June. Furthermore, we found that four distinct phylotypes belonging to the Proteobacteria dominated the microbiota, and these displayed major shifts throughout the season. Gilliamella apicola dominated the composition early on, and Snodgrassella alvi began to dominate when the other bacteria declined to an absolute low in October. In vitro co-culturing revealed that G. apicola suppressed S. alvi. No shift was detected in the composition of the microbiota under stable environment/dietary conditions between November and February. Therefore, environmental/dietary changes may trigger the shifts observed in the honey bee midgut/pyloric microbiota throughout a season.
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Project description:Human dependence on insect pollinators continues to grow even as pollinators face global declines. The Northern Great Plains (NGP), a region often referred to as America's last honey bee (Apis mellifera) refuge, has undergone rapid land-cover change due to cropland expansion and weakened land conservation programs. We conducted a trend analysis and estimated conversion rates of Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) enrollments around bee apiaries from 2006 to 2016 and developed models to identify areas of habitat loss. Our analysis revealed that NGP apiaries lost over 53% of lands enrolled in the CRP, and the rate of loss was highest in areas of high apiary density. We estimated over 163,000 ha of CRP lands in 2006 within 1.6 km of apiaries was converted to row crops by 2012. We also evaluated how alternative scenarios of future CRP acreage caps may affect habitat suitability for supporting honey bee colonies. Our scenario revealed that a further reduction in CRP lands to 7.7 million ha nationally would reduce the number of apiaries in the NGP that meet defined forage criteria by 28% on average. Alternatively, increasing the national cap to 15 million ha would increase the number of NGP apiaries that meet defined forage criteria by 155%. Our scenarios also show that strategic placement of CRP lands near existing apiaries increased the number of apiaries that meet forage criteria by 182%. Our research will be useful for informing the potential consequences of future US farm bill policy and land management in the epicenter of the US beekeeping industry.
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