Crop production in the USA is frequently limited by a lack of pollinators

Reilly, James R.; Artz, Derek R.; Biddinger, David J.; Bobiwash, Kyle; Boyle, N K; Brittain, Claire; Brokaw, Julia; Campbell, Joshua W.; Daniels, Jaret C.; Elle, Elizabeth; Ellis, Jamie; Fleischer, Shelby J.; Gibbs, Jason; Gillespie, Robert L.; Gundersen, K. B.; Gut, Larry J.; Hoffman, George D.; Joshi, Neelendra K.; Lundin, Ola; Mason, Keith S.; McGrady, C. M.; Peterson, Stephen S.; Pitts‐Singer, Theresa L.; Rao, Sujaya; Rothwell, Nikki; Rowe, Logan; Ward, Kimiora L.; Williams, Neal M.; Wilson, Julianna K.; Isaacs, Rufus; Winfree, Rachael

doi:10.1098/rspb.2020.0922

Cited by 245 publications

(218 citation statements)

References 60 publications

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“…The almond crop is worth billions of dollars per annum in the USA and Australia [ 24 ], and this commercial enterprise uses western honeybees as a major pollinator. Almond orchards ( Prunus dulcis ) are pollinated early in the year.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Colony-Level Effects of Amygdalin on Honeybees and Their Microbes

Tauber

Tozkar

Schwarz

et al. 2020

Insects

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Amygdalin, a cyanogenic glycoside, is found in the nectar and pollen of almond trees, as well as in a variety of other crops, such as cherries, nectarines, apples and others. It is inevitable that western honeybees (Apis mellifera) consistently consume amygdalin during almond pollination season because almond crops are almost exclusively pollinated by honeybees. This study tests the effects of a field-relevant concentration of amygdalin on honeybee microbes and the activities of key honeybee genes. We executed a two-month field trial providing sucrose solutions with or without amygdalin ad libitum to free-flying honeybee colonies. We collected adult worker bees at four time points and used RNA sequencing technology and our HoloBee database to assess global changes in microbes and honeybee transcripts. Our hypothesis was that amygdalin will negatively affect bee microbes and possibly immune gene regulation. Using a log2 fold-change cutoff at two and intraday comparisons, we show no large change of bacterial counts, fungal counts or key bee immune gene transcripts, due to amygdalin treatment in relation to the control. However, relatively large titer decreases in the amygdalin treatment relative to the control were found for several viruses. Chronic bee paralysis virus levels had a sharp decrease (−14.4) with titers then remaining less than the control, Black queen cell virus titers were lower at three time points (<−2) and Deformed wing virus titers were lower at two time points (<−6) in amygdalin-fed compared to sucrose-fed colonies. Titers of Lotmaria passim were lower in the treatment group at three of the four dates (<−4). In contrast, Sacbrood virus had two dates with relative increases in its titers (>2). Overall, viral titers appeared to fluctuate more so than bacteria, as observed by highly inconstant patterns between treatment and control and throughout the season. Our results suggest that amygdalin consumption may reduce several honeybee viruses without affecting other microbes or colony-level expression of immune genes.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Colony-Level Effects of Amygdalin on Honeybees and Their Microbes

Tauber

Tozkar

Schwarz

et al. 2020

Insects

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“…These aspects provide further motivation for study of developmental behavioral plasticity in this group. Many bee species are important agricultural pollinators (Winfree et al, 2011;Reilly et al, 2020). The ongoing locust outbreak in East Africa is anticipated to cause enormous economic loss and endanger food security (Peng et al, 2020).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Insects Provide Unique Systems to Investigate How Early-Life Experience Alters the Brain and Behavior

Westwick

Rittschof

2021

Front. Behav. Neurosci.

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Early-life experiences have strong and long-lasting consequences for behavior in a surprising diversity of animals. Determining which environmental inputs cause behavioral change, how this information becomes neurobiologically encoded, and the functional consequences of these changes remain fundamental puzzles relevant to diverse fields from evolutionary biology to the health sciences. Here we explore how insects provide unique opportunities for comparative study of developmental behavioral plasticity. Insects have sophisticated behavior and cognitive abilities, and they are frequently studied in their natural environments, which provides an ecological and adaptive perspective that is often more limited in lab-based vertebrate models. A range of cues, from relatively simple cues like temperature to complex social information, influence insect behavior. This variety provides experimentally tractable opportunities to study diverse neural plasticity mechanisms. Insects also have a wide range of neurodevelopmental trajectories while sharing many developmental plasticity mechanisms with vertebrates. In addition, some insects retain only subsets of their juvenile neuronal population in adulthood, narrowing the targets for detailed study of cellular plasticity mechanisms. Insects and vertebrates share many of the same knowledge gaps pertaining to developmental behavioral plasticity. Combined with the extensive study of insect behavior under natural conditions and their experimental tractability, insect systems may be uniquely qualified to address some of the biggest unanswered questions in this field.

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“…Additionally, spacing more than one camera out over time and space could be very influential to future restoration practices as understanding how insect groups utilize different floral resources at different phenological periods is a critical area of pollinator habitat research in restoration ecology [41]. Finally, since insects play such important roles in various ecosystem services and because recent research suggests declines in insects, especially pollinators, lead to limitations in crop production [44], developing non-lethal sampling strategies to better understand insects will be beneficial to helping document without destroying these critical ecosystem engineers will likely be favorable to the UN-SDGs.…”

Section: Conclusion and Future Researchmentioning

confidence: 99%

Use of 3-Dimensional Videography as a Non-Lethal Way to Improve Visual Insect Sampling

Curran

Summerfield

Alexander

et al. 2020

Land

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Insects, the most diverse and abundant animal species on the planet, are critical in providing numerous ecosystem services which are significant to the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals (UN-SDGs). In addition to the UN-SDGs, the UN has declared the period 2021–2030 as the “Decade on Ecosystem Restoration.” Insects, because of the ecosystem services they provide, are critical indicators of restoration success. While the importance of insects in providing ecosystem services and their role in helping fulfil the UN-SDGs is recognized, traditional techniques to monitor insects may result in observer bias, high rates of type-I and type-II statistical error, and, perhaps most alarmingly, are often lethal. Since insects are critical in maintaining global food security, contribute to biological control and are a key food source for higher trophic levels, lethal sampling techniques which may harm insect populations are undesirable. In this study, we propose a method to visually sample insects which involves non-lethal 3-dimensional video cameras and virtual reality headsets. A total of eight observers viewed video captured insects visiting floral resources in a landscaped area on a university campus. While interobserver variability existed among individuals who partook in this study, the findings are similar to previous visual sampling studies. We demonstrate a combination of 3D video and virtual reality technology with a traditional insect count methodology, report monitoring results, and discuss benefits and future directions to improve insect sampling using these technologies. While improving quantitative monitoring techniques to study insects and other forms of life should always be strived for, it is a fitting time to introduce non-lethal sampling techniques as preservation and restoration of biodiversity are essential components of the UN-SDGs and the “Decade on Ecosystem Restoration”.

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Crop production in the USA is frequently limited by a lack of pollinators

Cited by 245 publications

References 60 publications

Colony-Level Effects of Amygdalin on Honeybees and Their Microbes

Colony-Level Effects of Amygdalin on Honeybees and Their Microbes

Insects Provide Unique Systems to Investigate How Early-Life Experience Alters the Brain and Behavior

Use of 3-Dimensional Videography as a Non-Lethal Way to Improve Visual Insect Sampling

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