Life Sciences & Biotechnology
Title : | An enquiry of leaf and flower foraging sources of leafcutter bees towards their management and conservation |
Area of research : | Life Sciences & Biotechnology |
Focus area : | Pollination Ecology |
Principal Investigator : | Dr. Sinu Palatty Allesh, Central University Of Kerala, Kasargod, Kerala |
Timeline Start Year : | 2023 |
Timeline End Year : | 2026 |
Contact info : | sinu@cukerala.ac.in |
Equipments : | -80 refrigerator
Trap Nests |
Details
Executive Summary : | Pollinators are important functional guilds required to maintain healthy terrestrial ecosystems, particularly in tropics, where pollinator-dependent crops and wild plants are diverse and abundant and plant-animal interactions are complex. In addition, pollinators are economically important for an emerging economy like India, which produces and exports many pollinator-dependent food and cash crops as well as honey. Globally there is a widespread concern for pollinator declines and pollination deficiency in crop and wild plants. Colony collapse disorders have been cited as a reason for the loss of managed honey bees. Realizing the importance of wild solitary bees, conservation biologists find land-use change and decline of flower resources a threat for the wild bees. Recent studies suggest that improvement of the flower resources hardly improved the population and community structure of wild bees, and pointed out that the nesting resources and nesting opportunities of the bees also need attention. Unfortunately, we do not know what is the status of Indian wild bees. Leafcutter bees (Megachile spp: Megachilidae) are the ubiquitous long-tongued solitary bees of greater economic importance. They are specialist pollinators of Fabaceae flowers, so very important pollinators of several cash crops. Unlike many other bees, they depend plants for two major resources, pollen and nectar and leaves. They cut fresh leaves to line brood chambers in cavities above ground. Ornamental plant industry often depicts these bees even as a major “herbivore”. An understanding of their interaction with plants, leaves and flowers as a herbivore and as a pollinator can inform us a) whether these bees function both as a mutualist and as an antagonist for the same plants? b) what traits of plants and leaves drive the preference of bees? c) whether the leaf microbial composition act as a driver? and manage the bees. This project asks the following questions: |
Total Budget (INR): | 43,12,870 |
Organizations involved