Evaluating the foraging performance of individual honey bees in different environments with automated field RFID systems
Abstract Measuring individual foraging performance of pollinators is crucial to guide environmental policies that aim at enhancing pollinator health and pollination services. Automated systems have been developed to track the activity of individual honey bees, but their deployment is extremely chall...
| Main Authors: | , , , , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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Wiley
2022-05-01
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| Series: | Ecosphere |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://doi.org/10.1002/ecs2.4088 |
| _version_ | 1818252783034302464 |
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| author | Théotime Colin Ryan J. Warren Stephen R. Quarrell Geoff R. Allen Andrew B. Barron |
| author_facet | Théotime Colin Ryan J. Warren Stephen R. Quarrell Geoff R. Allen Andrew B. Barron |
| author_sort | Théotime Colin |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | Abstract Measuring individual foraging performance of pollinators is crucial to guide environmental policies that aim at enhancing pollinator health and pollination services. Automated systems have been developed to track the activity of individual honey bees, but their deployment is extremely challenging. This has limited the assessment of individual foraging performance in full‐strength bee colonies in the field. Most studies available to date have been constrained to use downsized bee colonies located in urban and suburban areas. Environmental policy‐making, on the other hand, needs a more comprehensive assessment of honey bee performance in a broader range of environments, including in remote agricultural and wild areas. Here, we detail a new autonomous field method to record high‐quality data on the flight ontogeny and foraging performance of honey bees, using radio frequency identification (RFID). We separate bee traffic into returning and exiting tunnels to improve data quality solving many previous limitations of RFID systems caused by traffic jams and the parasitic coupling of RFID antennae. With this method, we assembled a large RFID dataset made of control bee colonies from experiments conducted in different locations and seasons. We hope our results will be a starting point to understand how ontogenetic and environmental factors affect the individual performance of honey bees and that our method will enable large‐scale replication of individual pollinator performance studies. |
| first_indexed | 2024-12-12T16:29:39Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-8b8414ba005f44e6b0b370df0c7475e8 |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 2150-8925 |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-12-12T16:29:39Z |
| publishDate | 2022-05-01 |
| publisher | Wiley |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Ecosphere |
| spelling | doaj.art-8b8414ba005f44e6b0b370df0c7475e82022-12-22T00:18:48ZengWileyEcosphere2150-89252022-05-01135n/an/a10.1002/ecs2.4088Evaluating the foraging performance of individual honey bees in different environments with automated field RFID systemsThéotime Colin0Ryan J. Warren1Stephen R. Quarrell2Geoff R. Allen3Andrew B. Barron4School of Life and Environmental Sciences The University of Sydney Sydney New South Wales AustraliaTasmanian Institute of Agriculture University of Tasmania Hobart Tasmania AustraliaTasmanian Institute of Agriculture University of Tasmania Hobart Tasmania AustraliaTasmanian Institute of Agriculture University of Tasmania Hobart Tasmania AustraliaDepartment of Biological Sciences Macquarie University Sydney New South Wales AustraliaAbstract Measuring individual foraging performance of pollinators is crucial to guide environmental policies that aim at enhancing pollinator health and pollination services. Automated systems have been developed to track the activity of individual honey bees, but their deployment is extremely challenging. This has limited the assessment of individual foraging performance in full‐strength bee colonies in the field. Most studies available to date have been constrained to use downsized bee colonies located in urban and suburban areas. Environmental policy‐making, on the other hand, needs a more comprehensive assessment of honey bee performance in a broader range of environments, including in remote agricultural and wild areas. Here, we detail a new autonomous field method to record high‐quality data on the flight ontogeny and foraging performance of honey bees, using radio frequency identification (RFID). We separate bee traffic into returning and exiting tunnels to improve data quality solving many previous limitations of RFID systems caused by traffic jams and the parasitic coupling of RFID antennae. With this method, we assembled a large RFID dataset made of control bee colonies from experiments conducted in different locations and seasons. We hope our results will be a starting point to understand how ontogenetic and environmental factors affect the individual performance of honey bees and that our method will enable large‐scale replication of individual pollinator performance studies.https://doi.org/10.1002/ecs2.4088Apis melliferabee longevityflight ontogenyforaging performancepollination performanceradio frequency identification (RFID) |
| spellingShingle | Théotime Colin Ryan J. Warren Stephen R. Quarrell Geoff R. Allen Andrew B. Barron Evaluating the foraging performance of individual honey bees in different environments with automated field RFID systems Ecosphere Apis mellifera bee longevity flight ontogeny foraging performance pollination performance radio frequency identification (RFID) |
| title | Evaluating the foraging performance of individual honey bees in different environments with automated field RFID systems |
| title_full | Evaluating the foraging performance of individual honey bees in different environments with automated field RFID systems |
| title_fullStr | Evaluating the foraging performance of individual honey bees in different environments with automated field RFID systems |
| title_full_unstemmed | Evaluating the foraging performance of individual honey bees in different environments with automated field RFID systems |
| title_short | Evaluating the foraging performance of individual honey bees in different environments with automated field RFID systems |
| title_sort | evaluating the foraging performance of individual honey bees in different environments with automated field rfid systems |
| topic | Apis mellifera bee longevity flight ontogeny foraging performance pollination performance radio frequency identification (RFID) |
| url | https://doi.org/10.1002/ecs2.4088 |
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