Insect Pollinator Initiative Awards Made
Published Jun 22, 2010
Nine projects worth a total of up to £10M from the Insect Pollinators Initiative were announced today by the BBSRC during National Insect Week.
The BBKA has campaigned long and hard since 2008 to raise public awareness of the plight of honey bees and its efforts were recognised in April 2009 by the creation of the Insect Pollinators Initiative.
The projects will explore the causes and consequences of threats to insect pollinators and ask questions about the decline of honeybees and other pollinating insects over recent years. The aim is to inform the development of mitigation strategies that will ensure that the pollination of agricultural and horticultural crops is protected and biodiversity in natural ecosystems is maintained.
What is clear at present is that there is no one factor causing the problem. The causes of pollinator declines are likely to be complex and involve interactions between pollinators, the environment and the pests and diseases that affect these insects.
Martin Smith, BBKA President, said: “The BBKA is very pleased that the crucial role of bees in everybody’s life has been recognised in the awards and that two projects exclusively related to honey bees have secured funding. Honey bees feature in six of the seven other successful research projects."
“Honey bees, which living in colonies that can be managed, are the most economically important group of bees in the UK
“We will continue to look for further funding for other important projects identified in our Honey Bee Health Research Concepts document which have not been fortunate to be covered under the Insect Pollinator Initiative.”
Projects funded under the initiative are:
* Sustainable pollination services for UK crops Dr Koos Biesmeijer, University of Leeds
* Modelling systems for managing bee disease: the epidemiology of European Foulbrood Dr Giles Budge, Food & Environment Research Agency
* Investigating the impact of habitat structure on queen and worker bumblebees in the field Dr Claire Carvell, NERC Centre for Ecology and Hydrology
* An investigation into the synergistic impact of sublethal exposure to industrial chemicals on the learning capacity and performance of bees Dr Chris Connolly, University of Dundee
* Linking agriculture and land use change to pollinator populations Professor Bill Kunin, University of Leeds
* Urban pollinators: their ecology and conservation Professor Jane Memmott, University of Bristol
* Impact and mitigation of emergent diseases on major UK insect pollinators Dr Robert Paxton, Queen's University of Belfast
* Unravelling the impact of the mite Varroa destructor on the interaction between the honeybee and its viruses Dr Eugene Ryabov, University of Warwick
* Can bees meet their nutritional needs in the current UK landscape?
Dr Geraldine Wright, Newcastle University
The Insect Pollinators Initiative is a joint initiative from the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, the Natural Environment Research Council, The Scottish Government and the Wellcome Trust, and is funded under the auspices of the Living With Environmental Change partnership.