Exploring the External Environmental Drivers of Honey Bee Colony Development
Honey bees play an important role in agricultural landscapes by providing pollination services. Throughout the season, colonies increase their population and collect resources from the available flowering plants. Besides internal mechanisms, such as the amount of brood or the availability of bees to...
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| Format: | Article |
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MDPI AG
2023-11-01
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| Online Access: | https://www.mdpi.com/1424-2818/15/12/1188 |
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| author | Nuno Capela Artur Sarmento Sandra Simões Sara Lopes Sílvia Castro António Alves da Silva Joana Alves Yoko L. Dupont Dirk C. de Graaf José Paulo Sousa |
| author_facet | Nuno Capela Artur Sarmento Sandra Simões Sara Lopes Sílvia Castro António Alves da Silva Joana Alves Yoko L. Dupont Dirk C. de Graaf José Paulo Sousa |
| author_sort | Nuno Capela |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | Honey bees play an important role in agricultural landscapes by providing pollination services. Throughout the season, colonies increase their population and collect resources from the available flowering plants. Besides internal mechanisms, such as the amount of brood or the availability of bees to perform foraging flights, colonies are also influenced by the climate and the surrounding landscape. Therefore, exposure to different environmental contexts leads to distinct development rates. In this study, we show how colonies develop under three different landscape contexts and explore which external variables (mostly climate and resources availability) influence the colonies’ development. We installed three apiaries in three different landscapes in the Iberian Peninsula, with temporal and spatial variation in climatic conditions and resource availability. The availability of resources and their use, as well as the development of colonies throughout the season, were thoroughly investigated. These data were used to take the first step into creating an ecologically relevant landscape by calculating the number of available resources in the landscape at different points in time, based on plants’ beekeeping interest as well as nectar and production. Furthermore, climatic variables were transformed into the amount of available foraging minutes that bees had to collect resources, and a theoretical threshold of optimal vs. sub-optimal conditions was also explored. Interestingly, the main drivers of colony development (measured by daily weight increase) were not the same in the tested apiaries, evidencing how colonies are indeed intrinsically connected with the surrounding environmental scenario. Therefore, results from field testing are extremely context-dependent and should be interpreted with caution when being extrapolated to other environmental scenarios. |
| first_indexed | 2024-03-08T20:50:36Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-3f1e3b02c0f24bada647a9ca958b1b0f |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 1424-2818 |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-03-08T20:50:36Z |
| publishDate | 2023-11-01 |
| publisher | MDPI AG |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Diversity |
| spelling | doaj.art-3f1e3b02c0f24bada647a9ca958b1b0f2023-12-22T14:03:46ZengMDPI AGDiversity1424-28182023-11-011512118810.3390/d15121188Exploring the External Environmental Drivers of Honey Bee Colony DevelopmentNuno Capela0Artur Sarmento1Sandra Simões2Sara Lopes3Sílvia Castro4António Alves da Silva5Joana Alves6Yoko L. Dupont7Dirk C. de Graaf8José Paulo Sousa9Centre for Functional Ecology, Department of Life Sciences, Associated Laboratory TERRA, University of Coimbra, 3000-456 Coimbra, PortugalCentre for Functional Ecology, Department of Life Sciences, Associated Laboratory TERRA, University of Coimbra, 3000-456 Coimbra, PortugalCentre for Functional Ecology, Department of Life Sciences, Associated Laboratory TERRA, University of Coimbra, 3000-456 Coimbra, PortugalCentre for Functional Ecology, Department of Life Sciences, Associated Laboratory TERRA, University of Coimbra, 3000-456 Coimbra, PortugalCentre for Functional Ecology, Department of Life Sciences, Associated Laboratory TERRA, University of Coimbra, 3000-456 Coimbra, PortugalCentre for Functional Ecology, Department of Life Sciences, Associated Laboratory TERRA, University of Coimbra, 3000-456 Coimbra, PortugalCentre for Functional Ecology, Department of Life Sciences, Associated Laboratory TERRA, University of Coimbra, 3000-456 Coimbra, PortugalDepartment of Ecoscience, Aarhus University, 8000 Aarhus, DenmarkDepartment of Biochemistry and Microbiology, Ghent University, Krijgslaan 281 S2, B-9000 Ghent, BelgiumCentre for Functional Ecology, Department of Life Sciences, Associated Laboratory TERRA, University of Coimbra, 3000-456 Coimbra, PortugalHoney bees play an important role in agricultural landscapes by providing pollination services. Throughout the season, colonies increase their population and collect resources from the available flowering plants. Besides internal mechanisms, such as the amount of brood or the availability of bees to perform foraging flights, colonies are also influenced by the climate and the surrounding landscape. Therefore, exposure to different environmental contexts leads to distinct development rates. In this study, we show how colonies develop under three different landscape contexts and explore which external variables (mostly climate and resources availability) influence the colonies’ development. We installed three apiaries in three different landscapes in the Iberian Peninsula, with temporal and spatial variation in climatic conditions and resource availability. The availability of resources and their use, as well as the development of colonies throughout the season, were thoroughly investigated. These data were used to take the first step into creating an ecologically relevant landscape by calculating the number of available resources in the landscape at different points in time, based on plants’ beekeeping interest as well as nectar and production. Furthermore, climatic variables were transformed into the amount of available foraging minutes that bees had to collect resources, and a theoretical threshold of optimal vs. sub-optimal conditions was also explored. Interestingly, the main drivers of colony development (measured by daily weight increase) were not the same in the tested apiaries, evidencing how colonies are indeed intrinsically connected with the surrounding environmental scenario. Therefore, results from field testing are extremely context-dependent and should be interpreted with caution when being extrapolated to other environmental scenarios.https://www.mdpi.com/1424-2818/15/12/1188honey beelandscape contextforagingclimateflower resources |
| spellingShingle | Nuno Capela Artur Sarmento Sandra Simões Sara Lopes Sílvia Castro António Alves da Silva Joana Alves Yoko L. Dupont Dirk C. de Graaf José Paulo Sousa Exploring the External Environmental Drivers of Honey Bee Colony Development Diversity honey bee landscape context foraging climate flower resources |
| title | Exploring the External Environmental Drivers of Honey Bee Colony Development |
| title_full | Exploring the External Environmental Drivers of Honey Bee Colony Development |
| title_fullStr | Exploring the External Environmental Drivers of Honey Bee Colony Development |
| title_full_unstemmed | Exploring the External Environmental Drivers of Honey Bee Colony Development |
| title_short | Exploring the External Environmental Drivers of Honey Bee Colony Development |
| title_sort | exploring the external environmental drivers of honey bee colony development |
| topic | honey bee landscape context foraging climate flower resources |
| url | https://www.mdpi.com/1424-2818/15/12/1188 |
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