Csi pollen: Diversity of honey bee collected pollen studied by citizen scientists

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  • CSI Pollen

    Final published version, 5.45 MB, PDF document

  • Robert Brodschneider
  • Elfriede Kalcher-Sommersguter
  • Sabrina Kuchling
  • Vincent Dietemann
  • Alison Gray
  • Janko Božič
  • Andrejs Briedis
  • Norman L. Carreck
  • Robert Chlebo
  • Karl Crailsheim
  • Mary Frances Coffey
  • Bjørn Dahle
  • Amelia Virginia González-Porto
  • Janja Filipi
  • Dirk C. de Graaf
  • Fani Hatjina
  • Pavlos Ioannidis
  • Nicoleta Ion
  • Asger Søgaard Jørgensen
  • Preben Kristiansen
  • Jean François Odoux
  • Asli Özkirim
  • Magnus Peterson
  • Blaž Podrižnik
  • Sladan Rašić
  • Gina Retschnig
  • Aygün Schiesser
  • Simone Tosi
  • Flemming Vejsnæs
  • Geoffrey Williams
  • Jozef J.M. van der Steen

A diverse supply of pollen is an important factor for honey bee health, but information about the pollen diversity available to colonies at the landscape scale is largely missing. In this COLOSS study, beekeeper citizen scientists sampled and analyzed the diversity of pollen collected by honey bee colonies. As a simple measure of diversity, beekeepers determined the number of colors found in pollen samples that were collected in a coordinated and standardized way. Altogether, 750 beekeepers from 28 different regions from 24 countries participated in the two-year study and collected and analyzed almost 18,000 pollen samples. Pollen samples contained approximately six different colors in total throughout the sampling period, of which four colors were abundant. We ran generalized linear mixed models to test for possible effects of diverse factors such as collection, i.e., whether a minimum amount of pollen was collected or not, and habitat type on the number of colors found in pollen samples. To identify habitat effects on pollen diversity, beekeepers’ descriptions of the surrounding landscape and CORINE land cover classes were investigated in two different models, which both showed that both the total number and the rare number of colors in pollen samples were positively affected by ‘urban’ habitats or ‘artificial surfaces’, respectively. This citizen science study underlines the importance of the habitat for pollen diversity for bees and suggests higher diversity in urban areas.

Original languageEnglish
Article number987
JournalInsects
Volume12
Issue number11
ISSN2075-4450
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2021

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© 2021 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.

    Research areas

  • Apis mellifera, Citizen science, COLOSS, Diversi ty, Foragi ng ecol ogy, L andscape, Nutri tion, Season

ID: 306893269