IFIBYNE   05513
INSTITUTO DE FISIOLOGIA, BIOLOGIA MOLECULAR Y NEUROCIENCIAS
Unidad Ejecutora - UE
congresos y reuniones científicas
Título:
How knowledge about the neurobiology and the behavior of the honeybee can contribute to improve pollination services and crop yield in sunflower fields.
Autor/es:
FARINA, W.M.; SUSIC MARTÍN, C.S; MENGONI, CAROLINA
Lugar:
Huerta Grande
Reunión:
Congreso; 2º Congreso de la Asociación Latinoamericana de Ecología Química; 2012
Institución organizadora:
CICyTTP-CONICET
Resumen:
The exponential increase of cultivated areas in the last century has promoted a sudden decline in biodiversity in agricultural ecosystems. Many of these crops need animal pollination as the main resource to improve yield. However, due to the decline of native pollinators, these ecosystems have become increasingly dependent on a single species as pollen vector, the honeybee Apis mellifera. This situation forces to reevaluate the effect of these disturbed environments on this insect species, and also to rethink strategies to improve pollination efficiency within these agricultural settings by using honeybees. We focused on the seed-sunflower crops as an ecosystem with essential requirements of honeybees as the pollen vector. These crop fields require an intensive care, including the use of systemic insecticides and pollination services (the allocation of healthy beehives around the cultivated area). In this environment, honeybees have to forage efficiently by using, among other abilities, their well-known individual and social learning. The associative learning gives them the possibility to revisit rewarding flowers, but also to acquire food-related information from other individuals within the colony, specifically the floral scent, which can be learned by hive bees of any age. With this in mind, on the one hand we analyzed whether associative learning might be impaired by non-target systemic insecticide traces such as those present in sunflower fields. On the other hand, we raised the question of whether a synthetic mix of floral volatiles that mimics the natural blend of sunflowers might improve the honeybees’ pollination efficiency within the crop. Results at the levels of honeybee cognition and ecology together with landscape analysis by using GPS-yield mapping technology will be integrated to understand this tight honeybee-dependent crop.