Institut für Bienenschutz
Pollinators are exposed to various interacting stressors, including the global spread of pathogens and pests, climate change, land-use change, and agricultural intensification with its widespread use of pesticides. By establishing collaboration and working together on a project, we aim to tackle two major stressors, land-use changes and pesticide exposure, in four countries (Cameroon, Ivory Coast, Benin, and Kenya) along a west-to-east trajectory in sub-Sahara Africa. In the initial phase of our proposal, we establish a collaboration with our African project partners by harmonizing skillsets of all project partners, sharing standardized methodologies, and familiarizing ourselves with field site conditions. We seek to exchange information and hands-on practice on residue analysis, optimization of beekeeping, and remote sensing across country borders. Workshops and project related visits will facilitate exchange of expertise to cover the differences between countries. This will ensure that all project partners have the necessary skills and tools to participate actively in a newly launched standardized long-term pollinator monitoring program as part of our actual research project. Further goals of this project are to improve the pollination of important cash crops (e.g., cashew and cotton); to evaluate pollinator efficacy for these crops; to assess bee species-specific risks from exposure to agrochemicals and land use changes; and to extend taxonomic reference collections and databases with the monitored and identified pollinator species. Different methods, such as pan traps and Dynamic Vision Sensors (DVS), will enable us to evaluate pollinators' abundance and species identity, species interactions, their impact on crop production, and changes in insect activity patterns in response to pesticide applications. Addressing these topics in the project partner countries will help to establish and further develop risk assessment and management systems for pesticides across country borders.
German Research Foundation
