dc.contributor.author | Becher, MA | |
dc.contributor.author | Osborne, JL | |
dc.contributor.author | Thorbek, P | |
dc.contributor.author | Kennedy, PJ | |
dc.contributor.author | Grimm, V | |
dc.date.accessioned | 2015-10-19T08:27:32Z | |
dc.date.issued | 2013-06-10 | |
dc.description.abstract | Summary
1. The health of managed and wild honeybee colonies appears to have declined substantially
in Europe and the United States over the last decade. Sustainability of honeybee colonies is
important not only for honey production, but also for pollination of crops and wild plants
alongside other insect pollinators. A combination of causal factors, including parasites,
pathogens, land use changes and pesticide usage, are cited as responsible for the increased
colony mortality.
2. However, despite detailed knowledge of the behaviour of honeybees and their colonies,
there are no suitable tools to explore the resilience mechanisms of this complex system under
stress. Empirically testing all combinations of stressors in a systematic fashion is not feasible.
We therefore suggest a cross-level systems approach, based on mechanistic modelling, to
investigate the impacts of (and interactions between) colony and land management.
3. We review existing honeybee models that are relevant to examining the effects of different
stressors on colony growth and survival. Most of these models describe honeybee colony
dynamics, foraging behaviour or honeybee – varroa mite – virus interactions.
4. We found that many, but not all, processes within honeybee colonies, epidemiology and
foraging are well understood and described in the models, but there is no model that couples
in-hive dynamics and pathology with foraging dynamics in realistic landscapes.
5. Synthesis and applications. We describe how a new integrated model could be built to simulate
multifactorial impacts on the honeybee colony system, using building blocks from the
reviewed models. The development of such a tool would not only highlight empirical research
priorities but also provide an important forecasting tool for policy makers and beekeepers,
and we list examples of relevant applications to bee disease and landscape management decisions. | en_GB |
dc.description.sponsorship | Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) | en_GB |
dc.identifier.citation | Vol. 50, pp. 868 - 880 | en_GB |
dc.identifier.doi | 10.1111/1365-2664.12112 | |
dc.identifier.uri | http://hdl.handle.net/10871/18488 | |
dc.language.iso | en | en_GB |
dc.publisher | Wiley | en_GB |
dc.subject | Apis mellifera | en_GB |
dc.subject | colony decline | en_GB |
dc.subject | feedbacks | en_GB |
dc.subject | integrated model | en_GB |
dc.subject | multiple stressors | en_GB |
dc.subject | predictive systems ecology | en_GB |
dc.subject | review | en_GB |
dc.title | REVIEW: Towards a systems approach for understanding honeybee decline: a stocktaking and synthesis of existing models | en_GB |
dc.type | Article | en_GB |
dc.date.available | 2015-10-19T08:27:32Z | |
dc.identifier.issn | 0021-8901 | |
dc.description | Published | en_GB |
dc.description | © 2013 The Authors. Journal of Applied Ecology © 2013 British Ecological Society
This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. | en_GB |
dc.identifier.eissn | 1365-2664 | |
dc.identifier.journal | Journal of Applied Ecology | en_GB |