Projects

The effect of landscape on the distribution of insect pollinators

Megvalósítás alatt lévő/Futó projekt

Summary:

Summary:
The loss of insect pollinators has become a severe problem. The EU-funded Happybee project analyses the relationship of pollinating insects to small-scale and large-scale agriculture, proximity to forests and crop type, and reviews the frequency of different species. The researcher seeks to understand the movement and orientation of pollinators in the agricultural landscape through homing experiments. He also examines the turnover and growth rate of bumblebee colonies and the Queen’s breeding cells and pollen baskets with the help of DNA metabarcoding. Using a combination of agro-ecology, movement ecology, and landscape ecology methods, we can gain insight into pollinators’ distribution, fitness, movement and food production. The results can be helpful for both farmers and decision-makers and can help increase the effectiveness of agri-environmental schemes in promoting biodiversity. The postdoctoral fellowship also includes research work at the Zoological Institute of the Universität für Bodenkultur in Vienna, headed by Professor Thomas Frank.