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By Dr Aoife Delaney

Pollination is a great example of how, in ecology, everything is connected.  Plants depend on insects to reproduce and insects depend on plants for food.  By supporting each other, plants and insects support a lot of other organisms which live on or in them. Accordingly, many of the best conservation projects take an integrated approach to protecting ecological systems.  The project I am currently working on as a post-doctoral researcher with Prof. Jane Stout is a good example: assessing the impacts of landscape structure on pollination services in Burkina Faso, West Africa.

Nicknamed “Trees, Bees and Butter”, this project is a collaboration between BirdLife International and their partner in Burkina Faso, Naturama, the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB), Trinity College Dublin and the University of Ouagadougou. It is part of a larger, Darwin Initiative- funded project in which The Society for the Protection of Birds in the Netherlands (VBN) and the Global Shea Alliance are also partners. Given the prominence of BirdLife, the RSPB and VBN it is not surprising that bird conservation was the original driver of the work, so why have I focussed on bees and pollination?

Sharp declines in migrant bird populations in Europe over two decades raised concern among bird conservationists.   When they investigated, they found that there could be problems in the wintering grounds in West Africa, where scrub and forests have been cleared for agriculture and fallow areas have become smaller and shorter-lived.  Only the fruit-bearing trees remain dotted through the fields.  Similar trends have been associated with wildlife losses elsewhere, and they are difficult to reverse because farmers need to make a living.  However, if conservation friendly land-uses are shown to benefit local farmers, it might be possible to manage land better for people and for nature.

This is where pollination comes in.  Pollinating insects in West Africa depend on flowering trees as a source of food and shelter. When an area is cleared of most of its trees, leaving only species of economic importance, the resources available to pollinators are restricted and their populations might fall.  The remaining trees could struggle to find pollinators for their flowers, in which case fruit yield of pollinator-dependent trees would fall after scrub clearance. Pollinator-dependent fruit trees include shea (Vitellaria paradoxa) which is common in West African shea parklands and is economically valuable due to the growing use of shea butter in cosmetics and confectionary.

We wanted to find out whether pollination services to shea are affected by changes to farming practices in shea parkland in Burkina Faso.  To do so, we first chose sites in areas which had different amounts scrub and fallow land near Kabore Tambi National Park.  Then we counted the insects visiting shea flowers to see whether sites with different landscape structures had different numbers or species of flower visitors.  We also estimated the effectiveness of flower visitors as pollinators by saturating some sets of flowers with pollen and leaving others open for insects to pollinate.  The number of fruits yielded by pollen-saturated flowers tells you the maximum amount of fruit you can expect if everything that can be pollinated is pollinated.  The fruit yield of open flowers tell you whether pollination services are close to delivering this maximum pollination potential, or are much lower.

As shea only flowers for a few months each year, we wanted to know what other resources were important to pollinators in shea parklands, so we also recorded other flowering tree and shrub species in our sites, and what was visiting them.

It is too early to talk about results just yet, but we did make some interesting observations in the field.  Many of the less profitable native trees and shrubs remain in the fields but do not produce flowers as they are cut back or browsed frequently. Their persistence in the landscape represents a potential future resource for pollinators.  Most of the pollinating insects we observed were tiny wild bees, much smaller than a honey bee.  Ensuring that these wild bees have access to nest sites might be an important part of securing pollination services.  As well as bees, we found a wide range of other insects in shea flowers – flies, ants and bugs in particular.  Although they might not act as pollinators, this demonstrates that shea trees are likely to house food for insectivorous birds such as the willow warbler.  Encouragingly, many village chiefs and local farmers were interested in finding out about nature friendly farming.

Nature in West Africa is under pressure as climate change and human population growth make themselves felt.  Compared to other parts of the world, agricultural intensification started relatively recently, and non-commercial species persist within cultivated areas.  If we act now and show that conservation of natural habitats can benefit agricultural communities, we could help Africans to achieve what Europeans have failed to do: develop farming methods which are good for people and the planet.  This seems like great expectations of a little project, but whatever my findings are, they will shed a light on a type of agriculture which is spread over more than a million square kilometres, supports tens of millions of farmers, and is changing rapidly.

This project is funded by the UK Government’s Darwin Initiative: a grants scheme that helps to protect biodiversity and the natural environment through locally based projects worldwide.

About the author: Aoife Delaney is a post-doctoral conservation scientist at RSPB, working with Prof Jane Stout at Trinity College Dublin on shea pollination in West Africa.

Links:

http://www.birdlife.org/africa/news/learning-about-birds-and-bees-west-africa

https://ww2.rspb.org.uk/our-work/conservation/projects/ecology-of-migrant-birds-in-africa/

http://www.naturama.bf/web/

By Jane Stout

As part of PROBE, the research show-case event at Trinity College Dublin, this year we welcomed sixth class students from four local schools to learn about insects and the jobs they do for us.  Through three workshops, the children learned about how bees communicate with one another, where they live and the role they play in pollinating our food crops.

The first workshop focused on honeybee dances, and the children were introduced to the honeybee “waggle dance” and then  small teams of students had to dance to indicate to each other where they had found “food”. The students enjoyed running around as “scout” bees to find flowers, and then communicating where they were by waggling.

The second focused on where bees live, and many students were surprised that they don’t all live in hives. They had a great time building insect hotels, which they took back to their schools for their gardens. Although 11 of our Irish bee species would actually nest in these, they are great habitat for other wildlife in our gardens.

Finally, students played a card game and had to guess how insect-dependent various foods were in terms of pollination. Globally, 75% of crop species benefit from animal pollination, mostly by insects. But the degree of dependency varies between crop species: some absolutely depend on insects to transfer pollen (e.g. apples), others just benefit from their visits by producing more or better quality seeds or fruit (e.g. oilseed rape).

At the end of the session, we told the students about the All-Ireland Pollinator Plan and what they can do to help stop the decline in pollinators in Ireland. The teachers brought back copies of the Junior version of the Plan so that they can start to make their schools and gardens more pollinator-friendly.

Sandra Austin (Marino Institute of Education), Joanna Crispell (Science Gallery) and Jane Stout (Trinity College Dublin) developed the workshops and student teachers from the Marino Institute of Education and science communicators from the Science Gallery helped run the event.

Waggle dance game inspired by https://cdn.foe.co.uk/sites/default/files/downloads/Waggle%20dance%20game.pdf and pollinator dependent food game inspired by https://www.naturalis.nl/en/

I am a second year PhD student at the University of Western Australia. My research investigates the parts of bee venom which can be used to treat disease, with a specific target in mind. I recently visited Trinity College Dublin, to conduct a collaboration with Professor Jane Stout and her group.

Most of my research to date has been conducted with venom from Perth honeybees, which are some of the healthiest bees in the world due to their isolation. I ran a pilot test using bee venom from a different species, and it showed exciting results. Therefore, I am interested in seeing whether there is a large difference in the venom from many other bee species compared to Perth bee venom.

Through my collaboration, I had the honour of meeting numerous researchers and bee keepers at different sites, including farms, the Pearse Museum, and the rooftop of the Engineering Building at Trinity. It was very exciting to see bumblebees for the first time, as we do not have them in Western Australia. I collected the venom from numerous species, including the black Irish honeybee and Buff-tailed bumblebee.

My samples will be shipped across the world back to Western Australia using dry ice and specialised equipment. I will assess the effect of the different bee venoms on diseased cells, with the goal of further understanding whether the venom from one species is better than others in treating disease.

My research is conducted at the Harry Perkins Institute of Medical Research (www.perkins.org.au), the Centre for Integrative Bee Research (www.ciber.science.uwa.edu.au), and the University of Western Australia (www.uwa.edu.au).

Ciara Duffy (@CiaraDuffy__) is a PhD student at the University Western Australia. Ciara is conducting research on different species of bee venom. This research was supported by a Graduate Research School Travel Award from UWA, and the Cancer Council of Western Australia.

By Jane Stout

This year, for the first time, I attended the National Ploughing Championships in Tullamore, Co. Offaly. This is an annual event, showcasing everything agricultural, and a big deal in rural Ireland. Over the three days, 300,000 people don wellies and descend on a field in the midlands. It has been dubbed the “Glastonbury for farmers” and involves hundreds of stalls and events, as well of course as ploughing competitions.

But this year, I wasn’t there for the ploughing. I was there for the pollinators. We were launching the All-Ireland Pollinator Plan Farmland Guidelines.

These guidelines detail five evidence-based actions to help make farmland more pollinator friendly. These actions are:

Although these five actions may seem simplistic, if farmers embrace these actions, we have the chance to reduce pollinator loss across Ireland’s countryside. The guidelines were developed in collaboration with Bord Bia over two years, incorporating evidence from scientific studies both in Ireland and elsewhere, as well as engaging in extensive consultation with farmers, advisors, farming groups and local communities.

Many people who visited us in the Bord Bia Origin Green stand for the launch were amazed that we have 98 species of bee in Ireland, and that only one produces honey. Many were genuinely concerned about their decline and we heard from lots of people who were already farming in nature-friendly ways.

Although most of Irish agriculture is pasture-based, and not currently reliant on insect-pollination services, we hope that Irish farmers will take action to support bees and other pollinators. Their motivation may be a desire to maintain our diverse natural heritage, or they may see that these actions will benefit Irish farmers in a wider sense by reinforcing Ireland’s green image in premium markets. In addition, there are other benefits such as supporting natural pest control and protecting watercourses, keeping farming options open for future generations, and, in a lot of cases, saving farmers time and money.

By Alison Hall

This summer, myself and a fellow classmate were fortunate enough to have been given the opportunity to start embark on very exciting research projects. The subject of these projects – which I’ll admit may seem off-putting at first, but I promise with a short explanation you’ll be humming and nodding your head with interest – is insects. Flying insects to be exact. Flying insects in Dublin Zoo. See, this is where I know I’ve caught your attention.

Myself and my classmate, Mark Browne, are final year Zoology students studying in Trinity College Dublin and we are working with Dr. Jane Stout as our supervisor on this project. Jane put us into contact with Sandra Molloy, the research and conservation coordinator in Dublin Zoo. Together, we are investigating the species richness and abundance of flying insect species in different sites around the zoo. I myself am focused on comparing areas full of flowering plants to wooded areas, while Mark is comparing areas full of bamboo to the same wooded areas.

The first question you may ask, is why on earth would anyone want to do that? And there is a very simple answer: for conservation. Dublin Zoo is involved in a whole range of conservation projects around the world concerned with animals such as snow leopards, orangutans, and also with our own native Irish wildlife. They have records of these vertebrates and the ones which they provide habitats for in the zoo. There are very few records, however, concerning the invertebrate species which live in the zoo. This is where we come in. While the National Biodiversity Data Centre does have some records of insects which have been spotted in Dublin Zoo, we hope that our findings will be a very helpful base for further data which may be collected in the future.

During the summer months, myself and Mark, all kitted out in Dublin Zoo high-vis vests, set up pan traps in nine different sites across the zoo. Two traps were set up per site to monitor the different insects which each area supported. These pan traps mostly caught very small flying insects such as gnats and midges. These tiny insects can be very difficult to identify in the field and for this reason were brought back to a lab on Trinity campus where we used microscopes to help us identify them. We also carried out passive transect walks through the sites and took note of all of the larger flying insects, such as bees and butterflies, which we observed in our path.

The combination of these two sampling methods gave us a better impression of what insects were living in these areas, and we had a lot of fun in the process! Most of our field work was done early in the morning before official opening hours. Let me just say there is nothing like being the only two people in the zoo and listening the wolves howling, the lions roaring, hearing all the animals in the zoo waking up.

We were even recorded for the Dublin Zoo program which will air at some point in the future on the television. Although we felt a bit silly at times it was a fun experience that we were glad to be a part of. All in all, it has been an incredible summer and we have worked with such amazing people as we carried out this research. We hope that our findings prove helpful and useful in the future to others investigating the insects which inhabit not only Dublin Zoo, but the whole country. We are both very grateful to have been given the chance to work on these projects in such a prime location and we really enjoyed ourselves.

About the author: Alison Hall is a final year Zoology student at Trinity College Dublin.