Progress 04/01/18 to 03/31/22
Outputs
Target Audience:The target audience for our efforts are other researchers in the area of honey bee and pollinator health, beekeepers, and policymakers. Furthermore, landscape quality indices developed for this project are of direct interest to gardeners, land managers, and conservationists. We have also provided information on the project and associated tools that we developed (Beescape) to K-12 teachers through short courses that are supported by a USDA-NNF-STEP grant. We have discussed this project at multiple stakeholder conferences, including the Metro Atlanta Beekeepers Association (March 2021, Grozinger), Rotary Club of Landhorne, PA (May 2021, Grozinger), Foundation for Food and Agricultural Sciences Annual Board Meeting (Oct 2021, Grozinger), the Penn State Ag Council Meeting (Oct 2021, Grozinger), the North American Pollinator Protection Campaign (Oct 2021, Grozinger), PA State Beekeepers Association Annual Meeting (Nov 2021, Quinlan), the Entomological Society of America Annual Meeting (Nov 2021, Quinlan), University of Freiburg (March 2022, Grozinger), Wright State University (April 2022, Grozinger), Montana State University (April 2022, Grozinger) For our Beescape interactive tool, from March 2021 to March 2022, over 11,000 individuals viewed the Beescape site, and the site has received over 16,000 views. We have 657 individuals subscribed to receive the Beescape newsletter, and the newsletter is also incorporated into the PA State Beekeepers monthly newsletter. We also created a prototype for an online app (Insecticide Explorer) to share the insecticide toxicity index and underlying data with researchers and the public. While still in development, a draft of the app can be accessed here: https://insecticideexplorer.shinyapps.io/insecticideexplorer/ Changes/Problems:
Nothing Reported
What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?In March 2020, we hosted a workshop on Colony Weight Analysis, which included researchers from Pennsylvania State University, USDA-ARS, Ohio State University, Michigan State University, University of Nebraska, and University of California - Davis. This meeting provided a unique opportunity for a group of colony weight researchers to collectively present and discuss analytical methods and approaches for using weight data to better understand a wide suite of honey bee ecological questions. This meeting also resulted in three manuscripts, one review paper on using automated hive scales to study honey bee colony health (co-led by former postdoctoral fellow Sponsler and currently in review), a methods paper on statistical approaches for analyzing data from automated hive scales (co-led by Gray and Quinland and currently in preparation), and a pooled-analysis paper assessing nectar flows across eastern North America (led by Quinlan and published in 2022). This project has provided training opportunities for graduate student Tyler Jones, a recent MSc graduate in Entomology. Jones developed expertise in apiculture, insect nutritional ecology and physiology, molecular biology and analytical chemistry, statistical analyses, and geospatial analyses. This project provided training for graduate student Melanie Kammerer, who was supported by a USDA-AFRI-NIFA predoctoral fellowship. Kammerer successfully defended her thesis in summer 2020 and is now a USDA SCI-NET Fellow. This project provided training for a graduate student Darcy Gray, who was supported by a Penn State Black Fellowship and Fulbright Fellowship. Darcy is gaining expertise in random forest analysis, geospatial analysis, and time series analyses using automated hive scales. This project has provided training opportunities for three postdoctoral associates. Dr Martina Calovi is gaining expertise in coding and advanced statistical analyses (including generalized linear models, time series analysis, random forest analyses). In Spring 2021, Calovi started an associate professor position at the Department of Geography at NTNU in Trondheim, Norway. Dr. McNeil developed expertise in bee biology and health, apiculture, coding, advanced statistical analyses, geospatial analyses, data visualization. In Summer 2021, McNeil started an assistant professor position at University of North Carolina, Wilmington. Dr. Quinlan expanded her expertise in bee biology and health, and has developed additional expertise in nutritional ecology, advanced statistical analyses, geospatial analyses, data visualization. She was awarded an NSF Postdoctoral Fellowship in Biology and initiated these studies in March 2022. This project has provided opportunities for Sara Soba, an undergraduate at Dickinson College, to gain expertise in toxicology, geospatial analyses, database management, and coding in the R statistical language. Following her initial summer research experience funded by this project, in the spring of 2019 we obtained additional funding from Dickinson College to continue Soba's work. She conducted a survey of pilot users of the Insecticide Explorer web app, used the feedback to improve the tool, and created a user manual to enable future updates. Soba will be graduating in spring 2021 and has accepted a job offer to work as a technical consultant at an IT company (Enterprise Knowledge), an opportunity based in part on the strength of her work on this project. Grozinger and Patch have included methodology, data, and results from these studies in their undergraduate general education course, ENT 222, Honey Bees and Humans, which attracts 70 students every year from diverse programs at Penn State. In 2020 and 2021, we increased enrollment to 90 students. We have also provided information on the project and the associated tools that we developed (Beescape) to K-12 teachers through materials that are supported by a USDA-NNF-STEP grant. We provided information to the teachers as to how they can use the tool to better assess their landscapes and teach their students about landscape spatial analysis. Importantly, this project provided the opportunity for the members of the research team to work with Azavea, a Philadelphia based company, to develop the online Beescape tool, which allowed us to gain significant insights into the processes and information needed to develop such applications. In particular, graduate student Melanie Kammerer and postdoctoral fellow DJ McNeil worked closely with Azavea on the website development and have gained new expertise in this. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?We have discussed this project at multiple stakeholder conferences, including the Metro Atlanta Beekeepers Association (March 2021, Grozinger), Rotary Club of Landhorne, PA (May 2021, Grozinger), Foundation for Food and Agricultural Sciences Annual Board Meeting (Oct 2021, Grozinger), the Penn State Ag Council Meeting (Oct 2021, Grozinger), the North American Pollinator Protection Campaign (Oct 2021, Grozinger), PA State Beekeepers Association Annual Meeting (Nov 2021, Quinlan), the Entomological Society of America Annual Meeting (Nov 2021, Quinlan), University of Freiburg (March 2022, Grozinger), Wright State University (April 2022, Grozinger), Montana State University (April 2022, Grozinger) ? What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?
Nothing Reported
Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals?
Objective 1. CoPI Maggie Douglas developed the pipeline for generating an "Insecticide index" for the US. The insecticide load score reflects the expected 'toxic load' of insecticides applied surrounding a given location. This index was generated for the continental U.S. at two scales: county (see Douglas et al Scientific Reports 2020 for a complete description), and state-crop combinations, which can be joined with land cover data to generate maps of predicted insecticide loading (see Douglas et al. in review). During summer 2020 the pipeline was updated to include pesticide estimates through 2017, which recently became available from the source data. We also resolved several issues including honing the validation of pesticide application rates against independent datasets and generating pesticide estimates for double-cropped land uses. The associated manuscript describing the state-crop scale pipeline and mapping method is in review at Scientific Data. We obtained data from the PA State Beekeeper Association Annual survey on the overwintering survival of colonies. Data were obtained from the 2017, 2018, and 2019 surveys (surveys were conducted in April, and reflect colony survival from the previous November). Postdoctoral Associate Martina Calovi and collaborator Sarah Goslee (USDA-ARS) worked with PIs Grozinger and Miller to use a random forest analysis to examine the ability of parameters associated with management practices (treatment for parasites, years of beekeeper experience, size of the apiary), landscape quality (the insecticide index, seasonal forage quality, which was derived from coPI Lonsdorf's previous work), seasonal weather, and topography to predict colony winter mortality. Since Varroa mite treatment was significantly associated with colony survival and the majority of the beekeepers used treatments, we evaluated only colonies in which treatments were used. A random forest model for mite-treated apiaries predicted overwintering survival with 73.3% accuracy for colonies and 65.7% for apiaries, as determined by cross-validation. Growing degree days was the most important predictor at both levels. Neither topographic nor management variables were important predictors. A weather-only model was used to predict colony survival probability across Pennsylvania for the three years of the study, and to create a composite map of survival probability for 1981-2019 (long-term probability mean value of 59.5%). The manuscript describing these results was published (Calovi et al 2021). Additionally, we used the models resulting from this study to create the BeeWinterWise portal (see Objective 3 for more details). Darcy Gray, a Penn State graduate student, is analyzing the data obtained from the beekeepers for 2017-2021. These data include 2450 apiaries and 11476 colonies. Preliminary analyses demonstrated that treating for Varroa mites, using more than one type of treatment, and providing supplemental feed improved colony survival. We also conducted a random forest analysis on a subset of the data that were georeferenced, which included 577 apiaries and 2542 colonies. We found that, as before, growing degree days (summer temperature accumulation) and precipitation were the main factors influencing colony survival. The model predicts colony survival with an accuracy of 81.12%, indicating a potential to use these weather variables to enhance predictive tools for Pennsylvania beekeepers. Objective 2. Postdoctoral associate Sponsler (supported by other funds, including a USDA-NIFA predoctoral fellowship) developed processing tools and statistical methodology for analyzing data from automated hive scales placed under honey bee colonies in collaboration with beekeeper from our project. Sponsler's pipeline allows us to identify periods of colony growth and decline, corresponding with changes in resource availability in the landscape. These results were recently published (Sponsler et al 2020). Postdoctoral fellow Quinlan has developed an approach for analyzing the data generated from these scales, and combined these data sets with studies conducted at University of Wisconsin, Ohio State, Michigan State, USGS and University of Nebraska. Using a random forest analysis, Quinlan demonstrated that weather and climate conditions most strongly influenced maximum colony weight gain, and landscape conditions secondarily influenced weight gain. Our results indicated that warm, wet conditions negatively influence weight gain, while proximity to grassy herbaceous land positively influences weight gain. Our results suggest that broad climate conditions constrain regional floral communities, while land use and weather act to further modify the quantity and quality of pollinator nutritional resources. These results were published in Environmental Research Letters. Graduate student Tyler Jones investigated the role of landscape quality on the nutritional quality of pollen resources collected by honey bee colonies. Jones' results suggest there is substantial variation in the types and nutritional quality of pollen collected in a given time point. Jones successfully defended her MSc thesis in summer 2020. Postdoctoral fellow Gabriela Quinlan and undergraduate student Alyssa Curry examined the effect of colony seasonal condition and landscape seasonal condition on foraging preferences. Colonies were manipulated to have increased, equal or decreased brood in the spring and fall months. Increased brood is typical of spring colonies that are increasing in size and preparing for reproductive swarming. Our result indicate that both colony condition and surrounding seasonal plant communities influence the nutritional quality (protein, lipid, and protein:lipid ratios) of the pollen collected by the colony. These data are currently in preparation for a manuscript. Objective 3. ? In March 2019, we launched the "Beescape" website (Beescape.org) which included maps describing seasonal forage quality, nesting habitat, and insecticide toxic load for several states. Beescape was thus expanded to include the entire continental US in May 2020. The Beescape app was developed in collaboration with Azavea, and is embedded in a website developed by coPI Patch. Postdoctoral Fellow McNeil initiated a monthly newsletter associated with Beescape, which is distributed to registered Beescape users, to the PA State Beekeepers Association, and through the Center for Pollinator Research website and Twitter account, and Grozinger Lab Facebook page. In February 2021, Dr. Holly Holt took over development and distribution of the newsletter, and is working on updating and expanded the website by adding new content, resources, and an updated FAQ section. In June 2021, graduate student Darcy Gray has taken over the management of the newsletter. Further improvements to the Beescape tool and website, based on stakeholder feedback, are scheduled for summer 2022, funded by a new USDA grant. In March 2020, we launched the BeeWinterWise tool, which provides information on predicted winter survival of bee colonies in Pennsylvania, as a function of growing degree day, using the models we created in Objective 1. Additionally, we created an online app (Insecticide Explorer) to share the insecticide toxicity index and underlying data with researchers and the public. This app is associated with Douglas et al. (in review), and can be accessed here: https://insecticideexplorer.shinyapps.io/insecticideexplorer/
Publications
- Type:
Journal Articles
Status:
Under Review
Year Published:
2022
Citation:
Douglas, M., S. Soba, P. Baisley, M. Kammerer, E. Lonsdorf, and C. Grozinger. Putting pesticides on the map for pollinator research and conservation. (in revision, Scientific Data, https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.10.18.464808v1.full)
- Type:
Journal Articles
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2022
Citation:
Quinlan, G.M., Sponsler, D., Gaines-Day, H.R., McMinn-Sauder, H.B.G., Otto, C.R.V., Smart, A.H., Colin, T., Gratton, C., Isaacs, R., Johnson, R., Milbrath, M.O., and C. M. Grozinger.
Grassyherbaceous land moderates regional climate effects on honey bee colonies in the Northcentral U.S. Environmental Research Letters 17: 064036 (2022) https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/ac7063
- Type:
Journal Articles
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2020
Citation:
Douglas, M.R., Sponsler, D.B., Lonsdorf, E.V. and C.M. Grozinger. County-level analysis reveals a rapidly shifting landscape of insecticide hazard to honey bees (Apis mellifera) on US farmland Scientific Reports 10(1), 1-11.
- Type:
Journal Articles
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2021
Citation:
Calovi, M., Grozinger. C., Miller, D., Goslee, S. Summer weather conditions influence winter survival of honey bees (Apis mellifera) in the northeastern United States Scientific Reports 11: 1553 (2021) https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-021-81051-8
- Type:
Journal Articles
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2020
Citation:
Grozinger C.M. and A. Zayed. Genomics for understanding and improving pollinator health in a world of multiple stressors Nature Reviews Genetics 21: 277291DOI: 10.1038/s41576-020-0216-1 (2020).
- Type:
Journal Articles
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2020
Citation:
Sponsler, D.B., Shump, D., Richardson, R., Grozinger, C.M. Characterizing the floral resources of a North American metropolis using a honey bee foraging assay Ecosphere 11(4): e03102 DOI: 10.1002/ecs2.3102 (2020).
|
Progress 04/01/20 to 03/31/21
Outputs
Target Audience:The target audience for our efforts are other researchers in the area of honey bee and pollinator health, beekeepers, and policymakers. Furthermore, landscape quality indices developed for this project are of direct interest to gardeners, land managers, and conservationists. We have also provided information on the project and associated tools that we developed (Beescape) to K-12 teachers through short courses that are supported by a USDA-NNF-STEP grant. We have discussed this project at multiple stakeholder conferences, including the Penn State Alumni Association (May 2020, Grozinger), Northern Virginia Beekeepers Association (June 2020, Grozinger), Penn State Pollinator Health Webinar Series (July 2020, Grozinger), the PolliNation Podcast (July 2020, Grozinger), Vermont State Beekeepers Association (October 2020, Grozinger), Metro Atlanta Beekeepers Association (March 2021, Grozinger) and the American Honey Producers Association Meeting (December 2020, Quinlan). We discussed this project at multiple scientific conferences and institutions, including the Indian Pollinator Initiative (Grozinger, hosted by , hosted by IISER Thiruvananthapuram, National Centre for Biological Sciences - TIFR, Centre for Pollination Studies, University of Calcutta, University of Agricultural Sciences GKVK, University of Hyderabad), the National Academy of Sciences Annual Meeting (Grozinger, April 2020), the North American Congress for Conservation Biology (Douglas, July 2020) and the Entomological Society of America (Grozinger, November 2020). Since the previous report, we expanded Beescape to include the entire continental United States. Beecape has data layers/maps describing seasonal forage quality, nesting habitat, and insecticide toxic load. In March 2020, we launched the BeeWinterWise tool, which provides information on predicted winter survival of bee colonies in Pennsylvania, as a function of growing degree day, using the models we created in Objective 1. Finally, we also created a prototype for an online app (Insecticide Explorer) to share the insecticide toxicity index and underlying data with researchers and the public. While still in development, a draft of the app can be accessed here: https://insecticideexplorer.shinyapps.io/insecticideexplorer/ As a result of these presentations and the launch of the Beescape portal, we have established collaborations with researchers at several other universities who are interested in contributing to the project and/or utilizing the landscape quality indices that we have developed in their analyses. These include researchers at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, Purdue University, University of Wisconsin, Michigan State University, USGS, and University of Nebraska. In total 1844 beekeepers have registered through Beescape. Articles about the Beescape portal for the popular media were written by Penn State, the USDA-NIFA communications offices, and several other groups (articles are posted beescape.org). In total, from March 2020 to March 2021, over 11,900 individuals viewed the Beescape site, and the site has received over 46,000 views. Changes/Problems:
Nothing Reported
What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?In March 2020, we hosted a workshop on Colony Weight Analysis, which included researchers from Pennsylvania State University, USDA-ARS, Ohio State University, Michigan State University, University of Nebraska, and University of California - Davis. This meeting provided a unique opportunity for a group of colony weight researchers to collectively present and discuss analytical methods and approaches for using weight data to better understand a wide suite of honey bee ecological questions. This meeting also resulted in two ongoing manuscripts, one review paper on colony analysis techniques and another meta-analysis paper assessing nectar flows across eastern North America (led by Quinlan). This project has provided training opportunities for graduate student Tyler Jones, a recent MSc graduate in Entomology. Jones developed expertise in apiculture, insect nutritional ecology and physiology, molecular biology and analytical chemistry, statistical analyses, and geospatial analyses. This project provided training for graduate student Melanie Kammerer, who was supported by a USDA-AFRI-NIFA predoctoral fellowship. Kammerer successfully defended her thesis in summer 2020 and is now a USDA SCI-NET Fellow. This project has provided training opportunities for three postdoctoral associates. Dr Martina Calovi is gaining expertise in coding and advanced statistical analyses (including generalized linear models, time series analysis, random forest analyses). In Spring 2021, Calovi started an associate professor position at the Department of Geography at NTNU in Trondheim, Norway. Dr. McNeil developed expertise in bee biology and health, apiculture, coding, advanced statistical analyses, geospatial analyses, data visualization. In Spring 2021, McNeil started a postdoctoral fellow position at the NSF Socio-Environmental Synthesis Center. Dr. Quinlan expanded her expertise in bee biology and health, and has developed additional expertise in nutritional ecology, advanced statistical analyses, geospatial analyses, data visualization. This project has provided opportunities for Sara Soba, an undergraduate at Dickinson College, to gain expertise in toxicology, geospatial analyses, database management, and coding in the R statistical language. Following her initial summer research experience funded by this project, in the spring of 2019 we obtained additional funding from Dickinson College to continue Soba's work. She conducted a survey of pilot users of the Insecticide Explorer web app, used the feedback to improve the tool, and created a user manual to enable future updates. Soba will be graduating in spring 2021 and has accepted a job offer to work as a technical consultant at an IT company (Enterprise Knowledge), an opportunity based in part on the strength of her work on this project. Grozinger and Patch have included methodology, data, and results from these studies in their undergraduate general education course, ENT 222, Honey Bees and Humans, which attracts 70 students every year from diverse programs at Penn State. In 2020, we increased enrollment to 90 students. We have also provided information on the project and the associated tools that we developed (Beescape) to K-12 teachers through materials that are supported by a USDA-NNF-STEP grant. We provided information to the teachers as to how they can use the tool to better assess their landscapes and teach their students about landscape spatial analysis. Importantly, this project provided the opportunity for the members of the research team to work with Azavea, a Philadelphia based company, to develop the online Beescape tool, which allowed us to gain significant insights into the processes and information needed to develop such applications. In particular, graduate student Melanie Kammerer and postdoctoral fellow DJ McNeil worked closely with Azavea on the website development and have gained new expertise in this. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?See "Target Audience" section description What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?In the next reporting period, we plan to complete the analyses of the data provided from our network of citizen scientists/beekeepers and collaborators, to determine the factors (landscape quality, weather, topography) that influence colony weight change across the growing period. Depending on the availability of winter survival data from other states (Beescape users are providing this information through the website), we will expand the BeeWinterWise tool to include states beyond Pennsylvania.
Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals?
Objective 1. Determine how landscape context and beekeeping practices interact to predict honey bee colony overwintering survival. CoPI Maggie Douglas developed the pipeline for generating an "Insecticide index" for the US. The insecticide load score reflects the expected 'toxic load' of insecticides applied surrounding a given location (see Douglas et al Scientific Reports 2020 for a complete description). During summer 2020 the pipeline was updated to include pesticide estimates through 2017, which recently became available from the source data. We also resolved several issues including honing the validation of pesticide application rates against independent datasets and generating pesticide estimates for double-cropped land uses. The associated manuscript describing this pipeline is in preparation. We used this approach to evaluate insecticide toxic load at the county scale across the US from 1997-2012. We showed that while contact-based bee toxic load remained relatively steady, oral-based bee toxic load increased roughly 9-fold, with reductions in application rate outweighed by disproportionate increases in potency (toxicity/kg) and extent. This pattern varied markedly by region, with the greatest increase seen in the US Heartland (121-fold increase), likely driven by use of neonicotinoid seed treatments in corn and soybean. In this "potency paradox", farmland in the central US has become more hazardous to bees despite lower volumes of insecticides applied, raising concerns about insect conservation and highlighting the importance of integrative approaches to pesticide use monitoring. These results were published in Scientific Reports (Douglas et al 2020). We obtained data from the PA State Beekeeper Association Annual survey on the overwintering survival of colonies. Data were obtained from the 2017, 2018, and 2019 surveys (surveys were conducted in April, and reflect colony survival from the previous November). In total, 342 georeferenced apiary locations provided data, corresponding to 1726 colonies (which were alive the previous November). Postdoctoral Associate Martina Calovi and collaborator Sarah Goslee (USDA-ARS) worked with PIs Grozinger and Miller to use a random forest analysis to examine the ability of parameters associated with management practices (treatment for parasites, years of beekeeper experience, size of the apiary), landscape quality (the insecticide index, seasonal forage quality, which was derived from coPI Lonsdorf's previous work), seasonal weather, and topography to predict colony winter mortality. Since Varroa mite treatment was significantly associated with colony survival and the majority of the beekeepers used treatments, we evaluated only colonies in which treatments were used. A random forest model for mite-treated apiaries predicted overwintering survival with 73.3% accuracy for colonies and 65.7% for apiaries, as determined by cross-validation. Growing degree days was the most important predictor at both levels. Neither topographic nor management variables were important predictors. A weather-only model was used to predict colony survival probability across Pennsylvania for the three years of the study, and to create a composite map of survival probability for 1981-2019 (long-term probability mean value of 59.5%). The manuscript describing these results is currently in review. Additionally, we used the models resulting from this study to create the BeeWinterWise portal (see Objective 3 for more details). Objective 2. Determine how landscape context, beekeeping practices, and colony health parameters interact to predict colony productivity (honey production and colony size, which is critical for pollination services). Technician Anton and postdoctoral associate McNeil recruited beekeepers to provide data for this project using automated hive scales. In total, 21 beekeepers from across PA have been recruited to provide data. Additionally, we collected data from 4 apiaries at Penn State. This dedicated group of beekeeper-scientists contribute data directly to our research group on a monthly basis for weight dynamics analyses. Postdoctoral associate Sponsler (supported by other funds, including a USDA-NIFA predoctoral fellowship) developed processing tools and statistical methodology for analyzing data from automated hive scales placed under honey bee colonies in our project and used to record hourly weights throughout the year. Sponsler's pipeline allows us to identify periods of colony growth and decline, corresponding with changes in resource availability in the landscape. These results were recently published (Sponsler et al 2020). Postdoctoral fellow Quinlan has developed an approach for analyzing the data generated from these scales, and combined these data sets with studies conducted at University of Wisconsin, Ohio State, Michigan State, USGS and University of Nebraska. Data analysis is still underway, but Quinlan's results suggest that seasonal weather conditions (temperature and precipitation) and surrounding land use classes influence the rate of weight gain in mid-summer, the rate of weight loss in late-summer, and the timing of the inflection point. Graduate student Jones investigated the role of landscape quality on the nutritional quality of pollen resources collected by honey bee colonies. Jones' results suggest there is substantial variation in the types and nutritional quality of pollen collected in a given time point, but, when averaged across timepoints, honey bee foraging appears to converge on a preferred protein:lipid ratio. Furthermore, despite variation in the land use patterns surrounding the apiaries and the pollen species that the bees collected, the overall P:L ratio was unaffected. Jones successfully defended her MSc thesis in summer 2020. Objective 3. Develop an online portal with decision support tools (DSTs) for adaptive management of landscapes and honey bee colonies to promote stakeholder-selected outcomes (colony survival, honey production, and/or size). In March 2019, we launched the "Beescape" website (Beescape.org) which included maps describing seasonal forage quality, nesting habitat, and insecticide toxic load for several states. In the initial launch, three states were included (PA, IL, and IN). Co-PI Lonsdorf worked to expand the range of Beescape to include the entire all US states. Lonsdorf and graduate student Melanie Kammerer (funded by a USDA NIFA Predoctoral Fellowship) developed a new algorithm that increases the efficiency of analysis so that we can now evaluate the country at 30meters in about a day. This is a finer scale analysis and is much faster. Beescape was thus expanded to include the entire continental US in May 2020. The Beescape app was developed in collaboration with Azavea, and is embedded in a website developed by coPI Patch. Postdoctoral Fellow McNeil initiated a monthly newsletter associated with Beescape, which is distributed to registered Beescape users, to the PA State Beekeepers Association, and through the Center for Pollinator Research website and Twitter account, and Grozinger Lab Facebook page. In February 2021, Dr. Holly Holt took over development and distribution of the newsletter, and is working on updating and expanding the website by adding new content, resources, and an updated FAQ section. In March 2020, we launched the BeeWinterWise tool, which provides information on predicted winter survival of bee colonies in Pennsylvania, as a function of growing degree day, using the models we created in Objective 1. Additionally, we created a prototype for an online app (Insecticide Explorer) to share the insecticide toxicity index and underlying data with researchers and the public. While still in development, a draft of the app can be accessed here: https://insecticideexplorer.shinyapps.io/insecticideexplorer/
Publications
- Type:
Journal Articles
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2021
Citation:
Calovi, M., Grozinger. C., Miller, D., Goslee, S. Summer weather conditions influence winter survival of honey bees (Apis mellifera) in the northeastern United States Scientific Reports 11: 1553 (2021) https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-021-81051-8
- Type:
Journal Articles
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2020
Citation:
Grozinger C.M. and A. Zayed. Genomics for understanding and improving pollinator health in a world of multiple stressors Nature Reviews Genetics 21: 277291DOI: 10.1038/s41576-020-0216-1 (2020).
|
Progress 04/01/19 to 03/31/20
Outputs
Target Audience:The target audience for our efforts are other researchers in the area of honey bee and pollinator health, beekeepers, and policymakers. Furthermore, landscape quality indices developed for this project are of direct interest to gardeners, land managers, and conservationists. We have also provided information on the project and associated tools that we developed (Beescape) to K-12 teachers through short courses that are supported by a USDA-NNF-STEP grant. We have discussed this project at multiple stakeholder conferences, including annual meetings of the Western Pennsylvania Beekeeping Association (June 2019, Anton/McNeil), American Honey Producers Association Meeting (January 2020, McNeil), and the Penn State Pollinator In-Service Short Course (July 2019, Grozinger), the Montegomery County PA Beekeepers (August 2019, Grozinger), Pennsylvania State Beekeepers Association (October 2019, McNeil) the NJ State Beekeepers Annual Meeting (November 2019, Grozinger) and the during a short course for elementary and middle school teachers (July 2019, Grozinger and Patch). We discussed this project at multiple scientific conferences, including the International Conference on Pollinator Biology, Health and Policy, Davis, CA (July 2019, Grozinger was a keynote speaker, Douglas was an invited speaker), the Entomological Society of America (Grozinger was an invited speaker), and the Apimondia International Meeting (September 2019, Grozinger was an invited speaker), and the Entomological Society of Pennsylvania (October 2019, Douglas was an invited speaker). In March 2019, we launched the "Beescape" website (Beescape.org) which included maps describing seasonal forage quality, nesting habitat, and insecticide toxic load for several states. In the initial launch, three states were included (PA, IL, and IN) and subsequently expanded this to five more states (MI, WI, OH, NY, WV) using funding from a multi-state extension grant. In March 2020, we launched the BeeWinterWise tool, which provides information on predicted winter survival of bee colonies in Pennsylvania, as a function of growing degree day, using the models we created in Objective 1. Finally, we also created a prototype for an online app (Insecticide Explorer) to share the insecticide toxicity index and underlying data with researchers and the public. While still in development, a draft of the app can be accessed here: https://insecticideexplorer.shinyapps.io/insecticideexplorer/ As a result of these presentations and the launch of the Beescape portal, we have established collaborations with researchers at several other universities who are interested in contributing to the project and/or utilizing the landscape quality indices that we have developed in their analyses. These include researchers at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, Purdue University, University of Wisconsin, Michigan State University, Cornell University, and USDA-ARS. In total >600 beekeepers have registered through Beescape to provide data for this project. Articles about the Beescape portal for the popular media were written by Penn State, the USDA-NIFA communications offices, and several other groups (articles are posted beescape.org). In total, over 11,000 individuals have viewed the Beescape site, and the site has received over 36,000 views. Changes/Problems:N/A What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?In March 2020, we hosted a workshop on Colony Weight Analysis, which included researchers from Pennsylvania State University, USDA-ARS, Ohio State University, Michigan State University, University of Nebraska, and University of California - Davis. This meeting provided a unique opportunity for a group of colony weight researchers to collectively present and discuss analytical methods and approaches for using weight data to better understand a wide suite of honey bee ecological questions. This meeting also resulted in two ongoing manuscripts, one review paper on colony analysis techniques and another meta-analysis paper assessing nectar flows across eastern North America. This project has provided training opportunities for graduate student Tyler Jones, a PhD candidate in Entomology. Jones has developed expertise in apiculture, insect nutritional ecology and physiology, molecular biology and analytical chemistry, statistical analyses, and geospatial analyses. This project has provided training opportunities for two postdoctoral associates. Dr Martina Calovi is gaining expertise in coding and advanced statistical analyses (including generalized linear models, time series analysis, random forest analyses). Dr. McNeil is developing expertise in bee biology and health, apiculture, coding, advanced statistical analyses, geospatial analyses, data visualization, and human-coupled computer interfaces. This project has provided opportunities for Sara Soba, an undergraduate at Dickinson College, to gain expertise in toxicology, geospatial analyses, database management, and coding in the R statistical language. Following her initial summer research experience funded by this project, in the spring of 2019 we obtained additional funding from Dickinson College to continue Soba's work. She conducted a survey of pilot users of the Insecticide Explorer web app, used the feedback to improve the tool, and created a user manual to enable future updates. Grozinger and Patch have included methodology, data, and results from these studies in their undergraduate general education course, ENT 222, Honey Bees and Humans, which attracts 70 students every year from diverse programs at Penn State. We have also provided information on the project and the associated tools that we developed (Beescape) to K-12 teachers through short courses that are supported by a USDA-NNF-STEP grant. We provided information to the teachers as to how they can use the tool to better assess their landscapes and teach their students about landscape spatial analysis. Importantly, this project provided the opportunity for the members of the research team to work with Azavea, a Philadelphia based company, to develop the online Beescape tool, which allowed us to gain significant insights into the processes and information needed to develop such applications. In particular, graduate student Melanie Kammerer and postdoctoral fellow Darin McNeil worked closely with Azavea on the website development and have gained new expertise in this. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?We have discussed this project at multiple stakeholder conferences, including annual meetings of the Western Pennsylvania Beekeeping Association (June 2019, Anton/McNeil), American Honey Producers Association Meeting (January 2020, McNeil), and the Penn State Pollinator In-Service Short Course (July 2019, Grozinger), the Montegomery County PA Beekeepers (August 2019, Grozinger), Pennsylvania State Beekeepers Association (October 2019, McNeil) the NJ State Beekeepers Annual Meeting (November 2019, Grozinger) and the during a short course for elementary and middle school teachers (July 2019, Grozinger and Patch).? We discussed this project at multiple scientific conferences, including the International Conference on Pollinator Biology, Health and Policy, Davis, CA (July 2019, Grozinger was a keynote speaker, Douglas was an invited speaker), the Entomological Society of America (Grozinger was an invited speaker), and the Apimondia International Meeting (September 2019, Grozinger was an invited speaker), and the Entomological Society of Pennsylvania (October 2019, Douglas was an invited speaker). In March 2019, we launched the "Beescape" website (Beescape.org) which included maps describing seasonal forage quality, nesting habitat, and insecticide toxic load for several states. In the initial launch, three states were included (PA, IL, and IN) and subsequently expanded this to five more states (MI, WI, OH, NY, WV) using funding from a multi-state extension grant. In March 2020, we launched the BeeWinterWise tool, which provides information on predicted winter survival of bee colonies in Pennsylvania, as a function of growing degree day, using the models we created in Objective 1. Finally, we also created a prototype for an online app (Insecticide Explorer) to share the insecticide toxicity index and underlying data with researchers and the public. While still in development, a draft of the app can be accessed here: https://insecticideexplorer.shinyapps.io/insecticideexplorer/ As a result of these presentations and the launch of the Beescape portal, we have established collaborations with researchers at several other universities who are interested in contributing to the project and/or utilizing the landscape quality indices that we have developed in their analyses. These include researchers at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, Purdue University, University of Wisconsin, Michigan State University, Cornell University, and USDA-ARS. In total >600 beekeepers have registered through Beescape to provide data for this project. Articles about the Beescape portal for the popular media were written by Penn State, the USDA-NIFA communications offices, and several other groups (articles are posted beescape.org). In total, over 11,000 individuals have viewed the Beescape site, and the site has received over 36,000 views. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?In the next reporting period, we plan to publish the results of our studies in developing the insecticide index, publish our results analyzing the impact of management, landscape quality, weather, and topography on honey bee colony winter survival, publish our results of our studies analyzing the impact of landscape quality and context on the nutritional resources collected by honey bees. We will statistically analyze the data provided from our network of citizen scientists/beekeepers, to determine the factors (management, landscape quality, weather, topography) that influence colony weight change across the full annual cycle, and determine how colony weights interact with other factors to determine winter survival.? Additionally, we plan to expand Beescape to include data from the entire continental United States. Depending on the availability of winter survival data from other states, we will expand the BeeWinterWise tool to include states beyond Pennsylvania.
Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals?
Objective 1. Determine how landscape context and beekeeping practices interact to predict honey bee colony overwintering survival. CoPI Maggie Douglas developed the pipeline for generating an "Insecticide index" for the US. The insecticide load score reflects the expected 'toxic load' of insecticides applied surrounding a given location (representing a colony or nest site). These scores are generated in a multi-step process. For the Beescape site, we scaled these scores (x100) to be similar in value to the forage and nesting scores. We use these data in combination with land cover data to generate a map of predicted insecticide toxic load. A related analysis was used to evaluate changes in insecticide toxic load at the county scale across the US from 1997-2012. We showed that while contact-based bee toxic load remained relatively steady, oral-based bee toxic load increased roughly 9-fold, with reductions in application rate outweighed by disproportionate increases in potency (toxicity/kg) and extent. This pattern varied markedly by region, with the greatest increase seen in the US Heartland (121-fold increase), likely driven by use of neonicotinoid seed treatments in corn and soybean. In this "potency paradox", farmland in the central US has become more hazardous to bees despite lower volumes of insecticides applied, raising concerns about insect conservation and highlighting the importance of integrative approaches to pesticide use monitoring. These results were published in Scientific Reports (Douglas et al 2020). We obtained data from the PA State Beekeeper Association Annual survey on the overwintering survival of colonies from the 2017, 2018, and 2019 surveys. Postdoctoral Associate Martina Calovi and collaborator Sarah Goslee (USDA-ARS) worked with PIs Grozinger and Miller to use a random forest analysis to examine the ability of parameters associated with management practices (treatment for parasites, years of beekeeper experience, size of the apiary), landscape quality (the insecticide index, seasonal forage quality, which was derived from coPI Lonsdorf's previous work), seasonal weather, and topography to predict colony winter mortality. A random forest model for mite-treated apiaries predicted overwintering survival with 73.3% accuracy for colonies and 65.7% for apiaries, as determined by cross-validation. Growing degree days was the most important predictor at both levels. Neither topographic nor management variables were important predictors. The manuscript describing these results is currently in review. Additionally, we used the models resulting from this study to create the BeeWinterWise portal (see Objective 3 for more details). Objective 2. Determine how landscape context, beekeeping practices, and colony health parameters interact to predict colony productivity (honey production and colony size, which is critical for pollination services). Technician Anton and postdoctoral associate McNeil have recruited 21 beekeepers to provide monthly colony weight change data for this project. Additionally, we collected data from 4 apiaries at Penn State. These beekeepers span much of the state of Pennsylvania including the Lehigh Valley, Pocono Mountains, Laurel Highlands, and Great Lakes portions of the state. Postdoctoral associate Sponsler (supported by other funds, including a USDA-NIFA predoctoral fellowship) developed processing tools and statistical methodology for analyzing data from automated hive scales placed under honey bee colonies in our project and used to record hourly weights throughout the year. Sponsler's pipeline allows us to identify periods of colony growth and decline, corresponding with changes in resource availability in the landscape. These results were recently published (Sponsler et al 2020). Postdoctoral associate McNeil will be using these and additional tools to assess how landscape characteristics influence colony growth and weight. Furthermore, McNeil will use colony weight dynamics data to quantify regional- and state-wide periods of colony growth/decline to temporally map periods of expected resource 'dearth' and 'flow'. These data will be useful for beekeepers to better understand when resources will be limiting in different landscapes which has important implications for how landscapes may be managed for bee forage. Graduate student Jones has been investigating the role of landscape quality on the nutritional quality of pollen resources collected by honey bee colonies. Jones and Anton obtained pollen each month (collected over a one week period) from participating beekeepers during the growing season in 2017 and 2018. Jones sorted and weighed the pollen by color, to obtain an estimate of the diversity of pollen types obtained by colonies in each month and location. Dr. Sophie Warny at Louisiana State University used palynological approaches to identify the species of the pollens that are present at the highest proportions of the samples. Finally, Jones used our previously published methodology (Vaudo et al PNAS 2016) for measuring protein and lipid concentration to determine how location, landscape context, and month influenced the nutritional quality of the pollen collected by the bees. Jones' results suggest there is substantial variation in the types and nutritional quality of pollen collected in a given time point, but, when averaged across timepoints, honey bee foraging appears to converge on a preferred protein:lipid ratio. Furthermore, despite variation in the land use patterns surrounding the apiaries and the pollen species that the bees collected, the overall P:L ratio was unaffected. Moreover, month and location did not appear to significantly impact that overall pollen species diversity, though there was a tendency for less diverse pollen in July and in more diverse pollen in apiaries from Central PA. Objective 3. Develop an online portal with decision support tools (DSTs) for adaptive management of landscapes and honey bee colonies to promote stakeholder-selected outcomes (colony survival, honey production, and/or size). In March 2019, we launched the "Beescape" website (Beescape.org) which included maps describing seasonal forage quality, nesting habitat, and insecticide toxic load for several states (PA, IL, IN, MI, WI, OH, NY, WV) . The Beescape app was developed in collaboration with Azavea, and is embedded in a website developed by coPI Patch. Graduate student Melanie Kammerer (funded by a USDA NIFA Predoctoral Fellowship) generated the underlying raster maps and data layers used by the site. Postdoctoral Fellow McNeil initiated a monthly newsletter associated with Beescape, which is distributed to registered Beescape users, to the PA State Beekeepers Association, and through the Center for Pollinator Research website and Twitter account, and Grozinger Lab Facebook page. In March 2020, we launched the BeeWinterWise tool, which provides information on predicted winter survival of bee colonies in Pennsylvania, as a function of growing degree day, using the models we created in Objective 1. Additionally, we created a prototype for an online app (Insecticide Explorer) to share the insecticide toxicity index and underlying data with researchers and the public. While still in development, a draft of the app can be accessed here: https://insecticideexplorer.shinyapps.io/insecticideexplorer/ Co-PI Lonsdorf has been working to expand the range of Beescape to include the entire all US states. We've developed a new algorithm that increases the efficiency of analysis so that we can now evaluate the country at 30meters in about a day. This is a finer scale analysis and is much faster. We took some time to work with Melanie Kammerer to confirm that calculations matched and will be providing Azavea with new inputs by the end of May.
Publications
- Type:
Journal Articles
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2020
Citation:
Douglas, M.R., Sponsler, D.B., Lonsdorf, E.V. and C.M. Grozinger. County-level analysis reveals a rapidly shifting landscape of insecticide hazard to honey bees (Apis mellifera) on US farmland Scientific Reports 10(1), 1-11.
- Type:
Journal Articles
Status:
Awaiting Publication
Year Published:
2020
Citation:
Sponsler, D.B., Shump, D., Richardson, R., Grozinger, C.M. Characterizing the floral resources of a North American metropolis using a honey bee foraging assay Ecosphere (in press).
- Type:
Journal Articles
Status:
Under Review
Year Published:
2020
Citation:
Calovi, M., Grozinger. C., Miller, D., Goslee, S. Summer weather predicts overwintering survival in the European honey bee (Apis mellifera) in Pennsylvania Ecology and Evolution (submitted)
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Progress 04/01/18 to 03/31/19
Outputs
Target Audience:The target audience for our efforts are other researchers in the area of honey bee and pollinator health, beekeepers, and policymakers. Furthermore, the landscape quality indices developed for this project are of interest for gardeners, land managers, and conservationists. We discussed this project at multiple stakeholder conferences, including annual meetings of the American Honey Producers Association Meeting (January 2018, Grozinger), the Maryland State Beekeepers Association (February 2018, Grozinger), Western Pennsylvania Beekeepers Association field day (June 2018, Anton), PA State Beekeepers Picnic (July 2018, Anton), PA Forest Products Association (August 2018, Grozinger), Marcellus Shale Coalition (August 2018, Grozinger), Asbury Woods Bee Festival (September 2018, Grozinger), PA State Beekeepers Association (November 2018, Grozinger), Worchester MA Beekeepers Association (March 2019, Grozinger), Forest Landowner Conference (March 2019, Grozinger), Western Pennsylvania Beekeeping Association (June 2019, Anton/McNeil), Lancaster County Beekeepers Society (May 2018, Douglas), York County Beekeepers Association (August 2018, Douglas). We discussed this project at multiple scientific conferences, including the Biology and Genomics of Social Insect Conference (Cold Spring Harbor, NY, May 2018, Grozinger was a keynote speaker), the International Conference on Pollinator Biology, Health and Policy, Davis, CA, July 2019, Grozinger was a keynote speaker, Douglas was an invited speaker), the European Congress of Entomology (Naples, Italy, June 2018, Grozinger was an invited speaker), the Entomological Society of America Annual Meeting (Vancouver, CA, November 2018, Grozinger and Douglas were invited speakers), and in the RW Moriarty Science Seminar Series at the Carnegie Natural HIstory Museum (2018, Grozinger). In March 2019, we launched the "Beescape" website (Beescape.org) which included maps describing seasonal forage quality, nesting habitat, and insecticide toxic load for several states (three states were included in the initial launch, PA, IL, and IN) and are currently expanding the portal to include several other states. We also created a prototype for an online app (Insecticide Explorer) to share the insecticide toxicity index and underlying data with researchers and the public. While still in development, a draft of the app can be accessed here: https://insecticideexplorer.shinyapps.io/insecticideexplorer/ As a result of these presentations and the launch of the Beescape portal, we have established collaborations with researchers at several other universities who are interested in contributing to the project and/or utilizing the landscape quality indices that we have developed in their analyses. These include researchers at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, Purdue University, University of Wisconsin, Michigan State University, Cornell University, and USDA-ARS. In total >350 beekeepers have registered through Beescape to provide data for this project. Articles about the Beescape portal for the popular media were written by Penn State, the USDA-NIFA communications offices, and several other groups (articles are posted at beescape.org). In total, over 5000 individuals have viewed the Beescape site, and the site has received over 12000 views. Changes/Problems:
Nothing Reported
What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?This project has provided training opportunities for graduate student Tyler Jones, a PhD candidate in Entomology. Jones has developed expertise in apiculture, insect nutritional ecology and physiology, molecular biology and analytical chemistry, statistical analyses, and geospatial analyses. This project has provided training opportunities for two postdoctoral associates (Doug Sponsler and Martina Calovi) in coding and advanced statistical analyses (including generalized linear models, time series analysis, random forest analyses). Postdoctoral associated DJ McNeil (who joined the project in June 2019) is developing expertise in bee biology and health, apiculture, coding, advanced statistical analyses, geospatial analyses, data visualization, and human-coupled computer interfaces. This project has provided opportunities for Sara Soba, an undergraduate at Dickinson College, to gain expertise in toxicology, geospatial analyses, database management, and coding in the R statistical language. This project has provided opportunities for Kate Anton to develop expertise in advanced apicultural practices and management of citizen science networks and complex data sets. Kate has also trained two undergraduates and one part-time technician in apicultural practices and collection of data sets related to bee health. Grozinger and Patch have included methodology, data, and results from these studies in their undergraduate general education course, ENT 222, Honey Bees and Humans, which attracts 70 students every year from diverse programs at Penn State. Importantly, this project provided the opportunity for the members of the research team to work with Azavea, a Philadelphia based company, to develop the online Beescape tool, which allowed us to gain significant insights into the processes and information needed to develop such applications. In particular, graduate student Melanie Kammerer worked closely with Azavea on the website development and has gained new expertise in this. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?Please note that this information was also included in the "Target Audiences" section. We discussed this project at multiple stakeholder conferences, including annual meetings of the American Honey Producers Association Meeting (January 2018, Grozinger), the Maryland State Beekeepers Association (February 2018, Grozinger), Western Pennsylvania Beekeepers Association field day (June 2018, Anton), PA State Beekeepers Picnic (July 2018, Anton), PA Forest Products Association (August 2018, Grozinger), Marcellus Shale Coalition (August 2018, Grozinger), Asbury Woods Bee Festival (September 2018, Grozinger), PA State Beekeepers Association (November 2018, Grozinger), Worchester MA Beekeepers Association (March 2019, Grozinger), Forest Landowner Conference (March 2019, Grozinger), Western Pennsylvania Beekeeping Association (June 2019, Anton/McNeil), Lancaster County Beekeepers Society (May 2018, Douglas), York County Beekeepers Association (August 2018, Douglas). We discussed this project at multiple scientific conferences, including the Biology and Genomics of Social Insect Conference (Cold Spring Harbor, NY, May 2018, Grozinger was a keynote speaker), the International Conference on Pollinator Biology, Health and Policy, Davis, CA, July 2019, Grozinger was a keynote speaker, Douglas was an invited speaker), the European Congress of Entomology (Naples, Italy, June 2018, Grozinger was an invited speaker), the Entomological Society of America Annual Meeting (Vancouver, CA, November 2018, Grozinger and Douglas were invited speakers), and in the RW Moriarty Science Seminar Series at the Carnegie Natural HIstory Museum (2018, Grozinger). In March 2019, we launched the "Beescape" website (Beescape.org) which included maps describing seasonal forage quality, nesting habitat, and insecticide toxic load for several states (three states were included in the initial launch, PA, IL, and IN) and are currently expanding the portal to include several other states. We also created a prototype for an online app (Insecticide Explorer) to share the insecticide toxicity index and underlying data with researchers and the public. While still in development, a draft of the app can be accessed here: https://insecticideexplorer.shinyapps.io/insecticideexplorer/ As a result of these presentations and the launch of the Beescape portal, we have established collaborations with researchers at several other universities who are interested in contributing to the project and/or utilizing the landscape quality indices that we have developed in their analyses. These include researchers at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, Purdue University, University of Wisconsin, Michigan State University, Cornell University, and USDA-ARS. In total >350 beekeepers have registered through Beescape to provide data for this project. Articles about the Beescape portal for the popular media were written by Penn State, the USDA-NIFA communications offices, and several other groups (articles are posted beescape.org). In total, over 5000 individuals have viewed the Beescape site, and the site has received over 12000 views. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?In the next reporting period, we plan to publish the results of our studies in developing the insecticide index, analyzing the impact of management, landscape quality, weather, and topography on honey bee colony winter survival, and analyzing the impact of landscape quality and context on the nutritional resources collected by honey bees. We will statistically analyze the data provided from our network of citizen scientist/beekeepers, to determine the factors (management, landscape quality, weather, topography) that influence colony weight changes throughout the season, and determine how colony weights interact with other factors to determine winter survival. Based on the results of our studies, we will continue to refine and expand the Beescape portal to become more user-friendly and include data from additional states and parameters. Ultimately, we plan to include information in Beescape on weather and topography, and how the various factors interact to influence bee health, though this may be completed in Year 3.
Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals?
Objective 1. Determine how landscape context and beekeeping practices interact to predict honey bee colony overwintering survival. CoPI Maggie Douglas developed the pipeline for generating an "Insecticide index" for the US. The insecticide load score reflects the expected 'toxic load' of insecticides applied surrounding a given location (representing a colony or nest site). These scores are generated in a multi-step process. First, we use data on insecticide use from the U.S. Geological Survey and data on crop acreage from the U.S. Department of Agriculture to estimate the average per-hectare use of > 100 insecticide active ingredients on each type of cropland for each state. Insecticide use is then translated into honey bee lethal doses (using LD50s for each insecticide reported on the EPA ECOTOX site and others) and summed across insecticides to generate a single value expressed in lethal doses applied per hectare. For the Beescape site, we scaled these scores (x100) to be similar in value to the forage and nesting scores. We use these data in combination with land cover data to generate a map of predicted insecticide toxic load. Similar to the method for forage quality, we then assume that locations closer to a hive or nest site are more likely to be visited than those farther away, to generate a value at each site that represents the insecticide toxic load in the entire foraging range (3 to 5km). Higher scores are predicted to negatively influence bee and/or hive health. We have obtained data from the PA State Beekeeper Association Annual survey on the overwintering survival of colonies. Data was obtained from the 2017, 2018, and 2019 surveys (surveys were conducted in April, and reflect colony survival from the previous November). In total, 342 GIS-located sites provided data, corresponding to 1726 colonies (which were alive the previous November). Postdoctoral Associate Martina Calovi and collaborator Sarah Goslee (USDA-ARS) worked with PIs Grozinger and Miller to use a random forest analysis to examine the ability of parameters associated with management practices (treatment for parasites, years of beekeeper experience, size of the apiary), landscape quality (the insecticide index, seasonal forage quality, which was derived from coPI Lonsdorf's previous work), seasonal weather, and topography to predict colony winter mortality. Using a training set of 70% of the data across all three years, the best random forest model was able to predict the outcomes for the test data set with 70% accuracy. Management, weather, and topography factors were the most important variables, though survival also declined as the insecticide index increased. The publication associated with this analysis is in preparation. Objective 2. Determine how landscape context, beekeeping practices, and colony health parameters interact to predict colony productivity (honey production and colony size, which is critical for pollination services). Technician Anton and postdoctoral associate McNeil have been recruiting beekeepers to provide monthly data for this project. In total, 21 beekeepers from across PA have been recruited to provide data. Additionally, we collected data from 4 apiaries at Penn State. Data is also being contributed by users registering through the Beescape portal. Postdoctoral associate Sponsler (supported by other funds, including a USDA-NIFA predoctoral fellowship) has developed methodology for analyzing data from automated hive scales that are placed under honey bee colonies in our project and used to record hourly weights throughout the year. Sponsler's pipeline allows us to identify periods of colony growth and decline, corresponding with changes in resource availability in the landscape. Postdoctoral associate McNeil will be using these data to determine how landscape context influences growth and weight, and how colony size in different seasons, together with landscape context, influences winter survival. Graduate student Jones has been investigating the role of landscape quality on the nutritional quality of pollen resources collected by honey bee colonies. Jones and Anton obtained pollen each month (collected over a one week period) from participating beekeepers during the growing season in 2017 and 2018. In total, we obtained monthly pollen from 15 apiary sites across Pennsylvania in 2017, with additional sites contributing in 2018. Jones sorted the pollen by color, to obtain an estimate of the diversity of pollen types obtained by colonies in each month and location. By calculating the weights of the pollen in each color category, Jones evaluated the relative abundance of these pollen types. Jones is currently using palynology approaches to identify the species of the pollens that are present at the highest proportions (greater than 10% by weight) of the samples. Finally, Jones used our previously published methodology (Vaudo et al PNAS 2016) for measuring protein and lipid concentration in bulk and color-sorted samples, to determine how location, landscape context, and month influenced the nutritional quality of the pollen collected by the bees. Jones' results suggest there is substantial variation in the types and nutritional quality of pollen collected in a given time point, but, when averaged across timepoints, honey bee foraging appears to converge on a preferred protein:lipid ratio. The diversity and nutritional quality of the collected pollen are influenced by landscape context with pollen diversity influenced by percentage of natural land, and protein and lipid concentrations influenced by percentage of arable and percentage of natural land respectively. Jones is currently investigating how this variation in pollen nutritional quality influences honey bee queen rearing success. Objective 3. Develop an online portal with decision support tools (DSTs) for adaptive management of landscapes and honey bee colonies to promote stakeholder-selected outcomes (colony survival, honey production, and/or size). In March 2019, we launched the "Beescape" website (Beescape.org) which included maps describing seasonal forage quality, nesting habitat, and insecticide toxic load for several states (three states were included in the initial launch, PA, IL, and IN) and are currently expanding the portal to include several other states. The Beescape app was developed in collaboration with Azavea, and is embedded in a website developed by coPI Patch. Graduate student Melanie Kammerer (funded by a USDA NIFA Predoctoral Fellowship) generated the underlying raster maps and data layers used by the site. Additionally, we created a prototype for an online app (Insecticide Explorer) to share the insecticide toxicity index and underlying data with researchers and the public. While still in development, a draft of the app can be accessed here: https://insecticideexplorer.shinyapps.io/insecticideexplorer/
Publications
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