• HOME
  • NEWS
  • EXPLORE
    • CAREER
      • Companies
      • Jobs
    • EVENTS
    • iGEM
      • News
      • Team
    • PHOTOS
    • VIDEO
    • WIKI
  • BLOG
  • COMMUNITY
    • FACEBOOK
    • INSTAGRAM
    • TWITTER
Wednesday, September 10, 2025
BIOENGINEER.ORG
No Result
View All Result
  • Login
  • HOME
  • NEWS
  • EXPLORE
    • CAREER
      • Companies
      • Jobs
        • Lecturer
        • PhD Studentship
        • Postdoc
        • Research Assistant
    • EVENTS
    • iGEM
      • News
      • Team
    • PHOTOS
    • VIDEO
    • WIKI
  • BLOG
  • COMMUNITY
    • FACEBOOK
    • INSTAGRAM
    • TWITTER
  • HOME
  • NEWS
  • EXPLORE
    • CAREER
      • Companies
      • Jobs
        • Lecturer
        • PhD Studentship
        • Postdoc
        • Research Assistant
    • EVENTS
    • iGEM
      • News
      • Team
    • PHOTOS
    • VIDEO
    • WIKI
  • BLOG
  • COMMUNITY
    • FACEBOOK
    • INSTAGRAM
    • TWITTER
No Result
View All Result
Bioengineer.org
No Result
View All Result
Home NEWS Science News

Flower diversity may mitigate insecticide effects on wild bees

Bioengineer by Bioengineer
February 3, 2021
in Science News
Reading Time: 3 mins read
0
IMAGE
Share on FacebookShare on TwitterShare on LinkedinShare on RedditShare on Telegram

Research team led by the University of Göttingen emphasizes the benefits of diversifying flower resources

IMAGE

Credit: F Klaus/University of Göttingen

A higher diversity of flowering plants increases the breeding success of wild bees and may help compensate for the negative effects of insecticides. This is what researchers from the Universities of Göttingen and Hohenheim, as well as the Julius Kühn Institute, have found in a large-scale experimental study. The results have been published in the scientific journal Ecology Letters.

In their experiment, the researchers investigated how successfully the wild bee Osmia bicornis (red mason bee) reproduced. Red mason bees are important for both ecological and economic reasons. The wild bees were experimentally kept in more than 50 large enclosure cages with flower mixtures of varying wild plant diversity and insecticide-treated oilseed rape. Subsequently, the reproductive success of the wild bees, as measured by the number of their brood cells and emerged offspring, was investigated over several months.

The research team found that the number of cells that the wild bees created for their offspring where species-rich flowering mixtures were available was twice that of wild bees where only oilseed rape was available. The reproductive success of the wild bees, which have to supply their offspring with pollen and nectar, increased both in cages with a large diversity of flowering plants and where there were particularly important plant species. In contrast, if oilseed rape treated with clothianidin (from the neonicotinoid class of insecticides), was available to the bees, this had a negative effect on their reproductive success. However, this negative effect of the insecticide only occurred in cages with oilseed rape monocultures, which suggests that such effects can be mitigated by alternative food resources from species-rich flowering mixtures.

The study shows that both the diversity of flowering plants and exposure to insecticides significantly influence the reproductive success of wild bees, and shows that a high diversity of flowering plants could compensate for the negative effects of insecticides. “One possible explanation is that bee larvae benefit from additional nutrients, and are exposed to fewer insecticides, when the pollen of other plant species besides oilseed rape is available to them,” explains Felix Klaus, first author of the study and PhD student in the Agroecology Group at Göttingen University. “Our results emphasise the important role of species-rich resources of flowers for wild bees,” adds Professor Ingo Grass, head of the Department of Ecology of Tropical Agricultural Systems at the University of Hohenheim. “If sufficiently diverse flowers are available in the agricultural landscape, this could counteract the negative effects of monocultures and insecticides,” says Professor Teja Tscharntke, Head of the Agroecology Group at Göttingen University.

###

Original publication: Felix Klaus et al. (2021): Floral resource diversification promotes solitary bee reproduction and may offset insecticide effects – evidence from a semi-field experiment. Ecology Letters. DOI: 10.1111/ele.13683 or here to see the paper: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/ele.13683

Contact:

Felix Klaus

University of Göttingen

Faculty of Agricultural Sciences

Department of Crop Sciences – Agroecology Group

Grisebachstraße 6, 37077 Göttingen

Tel: +49 (0)551 3922359

Email: [email protected]

https://uni-goettingen.de/en/74726.html

Professor Teja Tscharntke

University of Göttingen

Faculty of Agricultural Sciences

Department of Crop Sciences – Agroecology Group

Tel: +49 (0)551 399209

Email: [email protected]

Professor Ingo Grass

University of Hohenheim

Department of Ecology of Tropical Agricultural Systems

Institute of Agricultural Sciences in the Tropics

Garbenstraße 13, 70599 Stuttgart

Tel: +49 (0) 711 459-22385,

Email: [email protected]

https://agroecology.uni-hohenheim.de/en/prof-grass

Media Contact
Melissa Sollich
[email protected]

Original Source

https://www.uni-goettingen.de/en/3240.html?id=6156

Related Journal Article

http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/ele.13683

Tags: Agricultural Production/EconomicsAgricultureBiodiversityBiologyEcology/EnvironmentFertilizers/Pest Management
Share12Tweet8Share2ShareShareShare2

Related Posts

New ECU Study Reveals Muscle Loss in Children During Early Cancer Treatment: A Hidden Threat to Recovery

September 10, 2025

Scientists Discover Giant DNA Hidden Within the Human Mouth

September 10, 2025

Fermented Poncirus Extract Inhibits Fat Cell Formation

September 10, 2025

Breakthrough: First-Ever Koala Chlamydia Vaccine Receives Approval

September 10, 2025
Please login to join discussion

POPULAR NEWS

  • blank

    Breakthrough in Computer Hardware Advances Solves Complex Optimization Challenges

    151 shares
    Share 60 Tweet 38
  • New Drug Formulation Transforms Intravenous Treatments into Rapid Injections

    116 shares
    Share 46 Tweet 29
  • Physicists Develop Visible Time Crystal for the First Time

    52 shares
    Share 21 Tweet 13
  • First Confirmed Human Mpox Clade Ib Case China

    56 shares
    Share 22 Tweet 14

About

We bring you the latest biotechnology news from best research centers and universities around the world. Check our website.

Follow us

Recent News

New ECU Study Reveals Muscle Loss in Children During Early Cancer Treatment: A Hidden Threat to Recovery

Scientists Discover Giant DNA Hidden Within the Human Mouth

Fermented Poncirus Extract Inhibits Fat Cell Formation

  • Contact Us

Bioengineer.org © Copyright 2023 All Rights Reserved.

Welcome Back!

Login to your account below

Forgotten Password?

Retrieve your password

Please enter your username or email address to reset your password.

Log In
No Result
View All Result
  • Homepages
    • Home Page 1
    • Home Page 2
  • News
  • National
  • Business
  • Health
  • Lifestyle
  • Science

Bioengineer.org © Copyright 2023 All Rights Reserved.