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- Avaliação da perceção do impacto da vespa-asiática (Vespa velutina nigrithorax) na atividade apícola em PortugalPublication . Verdasca, Maria João; Carvalheiro, Luisa; Rebelo, Hugo; Sampaio e Rebelo, RuiA vespa-asiática (Vespa velutina), nativa do sudeste asiático e presente na Europa desde 2004, onde é considerada invasora, tem sido amplamente referida como uma predadora eficaz da abelha-do-mel (Apis mellifera) e de outros polinizadores. Apesar do risco potencial para a produção de mel e para a prestação de serviços de polinização, até ao momento ainda não foi feita uma avaliação do seu impacto na apicultura. Neste trabalho, e com base num questionário online lançado em 2018 aos apicultores da zona norte e centro do país, pretendemos fazer uma primeira avaliação da perceção dos apicultores sobre o impacto da vespa-asiática na atividade apícola e sobre as estratégias de controlo da espécie que estão atualmente a ser implementadas em Portugal. Verifica-se que as ações de sensibilização feitas até ao momento estão a dar os seus frutos, pois a grande maioria dos apicultores que respondeu ao inquérito já se encontra informada sobre a vespa-asiática e seus impactos. Os apicultores que desenvolvem a sua atividade nos concelhos onde o número oficial de ninhos reportados é maior foram os que percecionaram maiores impactos desta espécie. Este é um bom indicador de que estudos baseados em inquéritos são credíveis e que podem ser usados como uma ferramenta de apoio à decisão. Os apicultores referiram que falta ainda conhecimento sobre quais as técnicas mais eficazes para combater a vespa-asiática e clamam por uma maior aproximação da comunidade científica na divulgação dos avanços sobre o tema. Foi ainda demonstrada insatisfação com a atuação das autoridades competentes no combate e, especialmente, na prevenção da vespa-asiática. Por fim, consideram ainda que os apoios recebidos até ao momento são insuficientes e consideram urgente a implementação de uma estratégia nacional vinculativa que regule o modo de atuação perante a vespa-asiática de forma igual entre todos os municípios. Globalmente, dada a consciencialização demonstrada pelos apicultores portugueses sobre o tema, o seu maior envolvimento na comunicação dos ninhos encontrados às autoridades competentes ou no seu registo no portal STOPvespa do Instituto da Conservação da Natureza e das Florestas (ICNF) pode ser fundamental para ajudar na monitorização e no controlo da expansão da vespa-asiática à escala nacional.
- Invasive hornets on the road: motorway-driven dispersal must be considered in management plans of Vespa velutinaPublication . Verdasca, Maria João; Rebelo, Hugo; Carvalheiro, Luisa; Sampaio e rebelo, RuiUnderstanding the mechanisms that potentiate the dispersion of an invasive species is essential to anticipate its arrival into new regions and to develop adequate management actions to minimize damage to biodiversity and society. One of the most successful invaders in Europe, the yellow-legged hornet (Vespa velutina), is dispersing through self-diffusion and jump dispersal. Using information on species occurrence in Portugal from 2013 to 2018, this study aimed to understand the range expansion trajectory of V. velutina and to identify the role of climate, landscape and anthropogenic variables on the two mechanisms of spread. We found that in Portugal the invasion is proceeding faster southwards (45 km/year) along the Atlantic coast than eastwards (20 km/ year) where the climatic suitability gradient is more compressed, with jump dispersal playing an important role in this difference and in the acceleration of the invasion process. Dispersal by diffusion was best explained by the annual range of temperature and precipitation of the wettest month, with distance to shrub land also having an important role. Additionally, jump dispersal appeared to be facilitated by motorways, hinting at the role of human-mediated dispersal. Indeed, the number of nests that resulted from this dispersive mechanism were significantly closer to motorways than expected by chance. To prevent the dispersal of V. velutina into Mediterranean regions, and in addition to a special attention to the advancing front, early monitoring programs should also target a buffer zone on both sides of motorways, and at freight shipping hubs.
- Virtual pollination trade uncovers global dependence on biodiversity of developing countriesPublication . Silva, F. D. S.; Carvalheiro, Luisa; Aguirre-Gutiérrez, J.; Lucotte, M.; Guidoni-Martins, K.; Mertens, F.Nations’ food consumption patterns are increasingly globalized and trade dependent. Natural resources used for agriculture (e.g., water, pollinators) are hence being virtually exchanged across countries. Inspired by the virtual water concept, we, herein, propose the concept of virtual biotic pollination flow as an indicator of countries’ mutual dependence on biodiversity-based ecosystem services and provide an online tool to visualize trade flow. Using information on 55 pollinator-dependent crop markets (2001–2015), we show that countries with higher development level demand high levels of biodiversity-based services to sustain their consumption patterns. Such patterns are supported by importation of virtual biotic pollination (up to 40% of national imports of pollinator-dependent crops) from developing countries, stimulating cropland expansion. Quantifying virtual pollination flow can help develop new global socioeconomic policies to meet the interconnected challenges of biodiversity loss, ecosystem health, and social justice.
- A global synthesis reveals biodiversity-mediated benefits for crop productionPublication . Dainese, Matteo; Martin, Emily A.; Aizen, Marcelo A.; Albrecht, Matthias; Bartomeus, Ignasi; Bommarco, Riccardo; Carvalheiro, Luisa; Chaplin-Kramer, Rebecca; Gagic, Vesna; Garibaldi, Lucas A.; Ghazoul, Jaboury; Grab, Heather; Jonsson, Mattias; Karp, Daniel S.; Kennedy, Christina M.; Kleijn, David; Kremen, Claire; Landis, Douglas A.; Letourneau, Deborah K.; Marini, Lorenzo; Poveda, Katja; Rader, Romina; Smith, Henrik G.; Tscharntke, Teja; Andersson, Georg K. S.; Badenhausser, Isabelle; Baensch, Svenja; Bezerra, Antonio Diego M.; Bianchi, Felix J. J. A.; Boreux, Virginie; Bretagnolle, Vincent; Caballero-Lopez, Berta; Cavigliasso, Pablo; Ćetković, Aleksandar; Chacoff, Natacha P.; Classen, Alice; Cusser, Sarah; da Silva e Silva, Felipe D.; de Groot, G. Arjen; Dudenhöffer, Jan H.; Ekroos, Johan; Fijen, Thijs; Franck, Pierre; Freitas, Breno M.; Garratt, Michael P. D.; Gratton, Claudio; Hipólito, Juliana; Holzschuh, Andrea; Hunt, Lauren; Iverson, Aaron L.; Jha, Shalene; Keasar, Tamar; Kim, Tania N.; Kishinevsky, Miriam; Klatt, Björn K.; Klein, Alexandra-Maria; Krewenka, Kristin M.; Krishnan, Smitha; Larsen, Ashley E.; Lavigne, Claire; Liere, Heidi; Maas, Bea; Mallinger, Rachel E.; Martinez Pachon, Eliana; Martínez-Salinas, Alejandra; Meehan, Timothy D.; Mitchell, Matthew G. E.; Molina, Gonzalo A. R.; Nesper, Maike; Nilsson, Lovisa; O'Rourke, Megan E.; Peters, Marcell K.; Plećaš, Milan; Potts, Simon G.; Ramos, Davi de L.; Rosenheim, Jay A.; Rundlöf, Maj; Rusch, Adrien; Sáez, Agustín; Scheper, Jeroen; Schleuning, Matthias; Schmack, Julia M.; Sciligo, Amber R.; Seymour, Colleen; Stanley, Dara A.; Stewart, Rebecca; Stout, Jane C.; Sutter, Louis; Takada, Mayura B.; Taki, Hisatomo; Tamburini, Giovanni; Tschumi, Matthias; Viana, Blandina F.; Westphal, Catrin; Willcox, Bryony K.; Wratten, Stephen D.; Yoshioka, Akira; Zaragoza-Trello, Carlos; Zhang, Wei; Zou, Yi; Steffan-Dewenter, IngolfHuman land use threatens global biodiversity and compromises multiple ecosystem functions critical to food production. Whether crop yield–related ecosystem services can be maintained by a few dominant species or rely on high richness remains unclear. Using a global database from 89 studies (with 1475 locations), we partition the relative importance of species richness, abundance, and dominance for pollination; biological pest control; and final yields in the context of ongoing land-use change. Pollinator and enemy richness directly supported ecosystem services in addition to and independent of abundance and dominance. Up to 50% of the negative effects of landscape simplification on ecosystem services was due to richness losses of service-providing organisms, with negative consequences for crop yields. Maintaining the biodiversity of ecosystem service providers is therefore vital to sustain the flow of key agroecosystem benefits to society.
- Wild insect diversity increases inter-annual stability in global crop pollinator communitiesPublication . Senapathi, Deepa; Fründ, Jochen; Albrecht, Matthias; Garratt, Michael P. D.; Kleijn, David; Pickles, Brian J.; Potts, Simon G.; An, Jiandong; Andersson, Georg K. S.; Bänsch, Svenja; Basu, Parthiba; Benjamin, Faye; Bezerra, Antonio Diego M.; Bhattacharya, Ritam; Biesmeijer, Jacobus C.; Blaauw, Brett; Blitzer, Eleanor J.; Brittain, Claire A.; Carvalheiro, Luisa; Cariveau, Daniel P.; Chakraborty, Pushan; Chatterjee, Arnob; Chatterjee, Soumik; Cusser, Sarah; Danforth, Bryan N.; Degani, Erika; Freitas, Breno M.; Garibaldi, Lucas A.; Geslin, Benoit; de Groot, G. Arjen; Harrison, Tina; Howlett, Brad; Isaacs, Rufus; Jha, Shalene; Klatt, Björn Kristian; Krewenka, Kristin; Leigh, Samuel; Lindström, Sandra A. M.; Mandelik, Yael; McKerchar, Megan; Park, Mia; Pisanty, Gideon; Rader, Romina; Reemer, Menno; Rundlöf, Maj; Smith, Barbara; Smith, Henrik G.; Silva, Patrícia Nunes; Steffan-Dewenter, Ingolf; Tscharntke, Teja; Webber, Sean; Westbury, Duncan B.; Westphal, Catrin; Wickens, Jennifer B.; Wickens, Victoria J.; Winfree, Rachael; Zhang, Hong; Klein, Alexandra-MariaWhile an increasing number of studies indicate that the range, diversity and abundance of many wild pollinators has declined, the global area of pollinator-dependent crops has significantly increased over the last few decades. Crop pollination studies to date have mainly focused on either identifying different guilds pollinating various crops, or on factors driving spatial changes and turnover observed in these communities. The mechanisms driving temporal stability for ecosystem functioning and services, however, remain poorly understood. Our study quantifies temporal variability observed in crop pollinators in 21 different crops across multiple years at a global scale. Using data from 43 studies from six continents, we show that (i) higher pollinator diversity confers greater inter-annual stability in pollinator communities, (ii) temporal variation observed in pollinator abundance is primarily driven by the three-most dominant species, and (iii) crops in tropical regions demonstrate higher inter-annual variability in pollinator species richness than crops in temperate regions. We highlight the importance of recognizing wild pollinator diversity in agricultural landscapes to stabilize pollinator persistence across years to protect both biodiversity and crop pollination services. Short-term agricultural management practices aimed at dominant species for stabilizing pollination services need to be considered alongside longer term conservation goals focussed on maintaining and facilitating biodiversity to confer ecological stability.
- Tripartite networks show that keystone species can multitaskPublication . Timóteo, Sérgio; Albrecht, Jörg; Rumeu, Beatriz; Norte, Ana C.; Traveset, Anna; Frost, Carol M.; Marchante, Elizabete; López‐Núñez, Francisco A.; Peralta, Guadalupe; Memmott, Jane; Olesen, Jens M.; Costa, José M.; da Silva, Luís P.; Carvalheiro, Luisa; Correia, Marta; Staab, Michael; Blüthgen, Nico; Farwig, Nina; Hervías‐Parejo, Sandra; Mironov, Sergei; Rodríguez‐Echeverría, Susana; Heleno, RubenKeystone species are disproportionately important for ecosystem functioning. While all species engage in multiple interaction types with other species, keystone species importance is often defined based on a single dimension of their Eltonian niche, that is, one type of interaction (e.g. keystone predator). It remains unclear whether the importance of keystone species is unidimensional or if it extends across interaction types. We conducted a meta-analysis of tripartite interaction networks examining whether species importance in one dimension of their niche is mirrored in other niche dimensions, and whether this is associated with interaction outcome, intimacy or species richness. We show that keystone species importance is positively associated across multiple ecological niche dimensions, independently of abundance, and find no evidence that multidimensionality of keystone species is influenced by the explanatory variables. We propose that the role of keystone species extends across multiple ecological niche dimensions, with important implications for ecosystem resilience and conservation.
- A metabarcoding tool to detect predation of the honeybee Apis mellifera and other wild insects by the invasive Vespa velutinaPublication . Verdasca, Maria João; Godinho, Raquel; Rocha, Rita Gomes; Portocarrero, Marco; Gigante Carvalheiro, Luísa; Sampaio e rebelo, Rui; Rebelo, HugoThe invasive Vespa velutina has been widely referred as an effective predator of honeybees. Despite the potential risk to pollination services provision and honey production, there is no accurate quantification and assessment of its real consequences for honeybees. To date, the identification of the honeybee and other insects in the diet of V. velutina has been investigated by direct observation of adult foraging or examination of food pellets. To overcome these limitations, in this study we used a DNA metabarcoding approach to evaluate the usefulness of different types of sample (jaws and stomachs collected from workers and larval faecal pellets taken from the hornet comb) to investigate the predation of V. velutina upon honeybees, and potentially on other insects. Honeybee DNA was identified in all types of samples, but larval faecal pellets retrieved the higher number of reads of honeybee DNA and the largest diversity at all taxonomic levels. Over all samples we could identify 4 orders, 9 families, 6 genera and 1 species of prey. We estimate that collecting 6 workers is sufficient to identify honeybee predation by a colony using worker’s jaws. Stomachs were the least useful sample type to detect honeybee DNA. The presence of honeybee DNA in all analysed colonies irrespective of collection site, and the variety of insect orders detected in the diet support current concerns over the acknowledged negative impact of V. velutina on managed honeybees and its potential threat to pollination services provision.
- Population genomics of Bombus terrestris reveals high but unstructured genetic diversity in a potential glacial refugiumPublication . Silva, Sara Ema; Seabra, Sofia G; Carvalheiro, Luisa; Nunes, Vera L.; Marabuto, Eduardo; Mendes, Raquel; Rodrigues, Ana S. B.; Pina-Martins; Yurtsever, Selçuk; Laurentino, Telma G; Figueiredo, Elisabete; Rebelo, Maria T; Paulo, Octávio S.Ongoing climate change is expected to cause an increase in temperature and a reduction of precipitation levels in the Mediterranean region, which might cause changes in many species distributions. These effects negatively influence species gene pools, decreasing genetic variability and adaptive potential. Here, we use mitochondrial DNA and RADseq to analyse population genetic structure and genetic diversity of the bumblebee species Bombus terrestris (subspecies Bombus terrestris lusitanicus), in the Iberian Peninsula. Although this subspecies shows a panmictic pattern of population structure across Iberia and beyond, we found differentiation between subspecies B. t. lusitanicus and B. t. africanus, probably caused by the existence of barriers to gene flow between Iberia and North Africa. Furthermore, the results revealed that the Iberian Peninsula harbours a large fraction of B. terrestris intraspecific genetic variation, with the highest number of mitochondrial haplotypes found when compared with any other region in Europe studied so far, suggesting a potential role for the Iberian Peninsula as a glacial refugium. Our findings strengthen the idea that Iberia is a very important source of diversity for the global genetic pool of this species, because rare alleles might play a role in population resilience against human- or climate-mediated changes.
- Data standardization of plant–pollinator interactionsPublication . Salim, José A; Saraiva, Antonio M; Zermoglio, Paula F; Agostini, Kayna; Wolowski, Marina; Drucker, Debora P; Soares, Filipi M; Bergamo, Pedro J; Varassin, Isabela G; Freitas, Leandro; Maués, Márcia M; Rech, Andre R; Veiga, Allan K; Acosta, Andre L; Araujo, Andréa C; Nogueira, Anselmo; Blochtein, Betina; Freitas, Breno M; Albertini, Bruno C; Maia-Silva, Camila; Nunes, Carlos E P; Pires, Carmen S S; dos Santos, Charles F; Queiroz, Elisa P; Cartolano, Etienne A; de Oliveira, Favízia F; Amorim, Felipe W; Fontúrbel, Francisco E; da Silva, Gleycon V; Consolaro, Hélder; Alves-dos-Santos, Isabel; Machado, Isabel C; Silva, Juliana S; Aleixo, Kátia P; Carvalheiro, Luisa; Rocca, Márcia A; Pinheiro, Mardiore; Hrncir, Michael; Streher, Nathália S; Ferreira, Patricia A; de Albuquerque, Patricia M C; Maruyama, Pietro K; Borges, Rafael C; Giannini, Tereza C; Brito, Vinícius L GBackground: Animal pollination is an important ecosystem function and service, ensuring both the integrity of natural systems and human well-being. Although many knowledge shortfalls remain, some high-quality data sets on biological interactions are now available. The development and adoption of standards for biodiversity data and metadata has promoted great advances in biological data sharing and aggregation, supporting large-scale studies and science-based public policies. However, these standards are currently not suitable to fully support interaction data sharing. Results: Here we present a vocabulary of terms and a data model for sharing plant–pollinator interactions data based on the Darwin Core standard. The vocabulary introduces 48 new terms targeting several aspects of plant–pollinator interactions and can be used to capture information from different approaches and scales. Additionally, we provide solutions for data serialization using RDF, XML, and DwC-Archives and recommendations of existing controlled vocabularies for some of the terms. Our contribution supports open access to standardized data on plant–pollinator interactions. Conclusions: The adoption of the vocabulary would facilitate data sharing to support studies ranging from the spatial and temporal distribution of interactions to the taxonomic, phenological, functional, and phylogenetic aspects of plant–pollinator interactions. We expect to fill data and knowledge gaps, thus further enabling scientific research on the ecology and evolution of plant–pollinator communities, biodiversity conservation, ecosystem services, and the development of public policies. The proposed data model is flexible and can be adapted for sharing other types of interactions data by developing discipline-specific vocabularies of terms
- Invasive hornets on the road: motorway-driven dispersal must be considered in management plans of Vespa velutinaPublication . Verdasca, Maria João; Rebelo, Hugo; Carvalheiro, Luisa; Sampaio e rebelo, RuiUnderstanding the mechanisms that potentiate the dispersion of an invasive species is essential to anticipate its arrival into new regions and to develop adequate management actions to minimize damage to biodiversity and society. One of the most successful invaders in Europe, the yellow-legged hornet (Vespa velutina), is dispersing through self-diffusion and jump dispersal. Using information on species occurrence in Portugal from 2013 to 2018, this study aimed to understand the range expansion trajectory of V. velutina and to identify the role of climate, landscape and anthropogenic variables on the two mechanisms of spread. We found that in Portugal the invasion is proceeding faster southwards (45 km/year) along the Atlantic coast than eastwards (20 km/ year) where the climatic suitability gradient is more compressed, with jump dispersal playing an important role in this difference and in the acceleration of the invasion process. Dispersal by diffusion was best explained by the annual range of temperature and precipitation of the wettest month, with distance to shrub land also having an important role. Additionally, jump dispersal appeared to be facilitated by motorways, hinting at the role of human-mediated dispersal. Indeed, the number of nests that resulted from this dispersive mechanism were significantly closer to motorways than expected by chance. To prevent the dispersal of V. velutina into Mediterranean regions, and in addition to a special attention to the advancing front, early monitoring programs should also target a buffer zone on both sides of motorways, and at freight shipping hubs.