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There are more than 20,000 bee species and if they were to experience a severe drop in their numbers, the effect on the world’s food supply would be catastrophic, says Dr Anna Gajda.
It is impossible to overstate the importance of bees to the global ecosystem. If they were to rapidly decrease in numbers, not only would the global economy face serious repercussions such as mass food insecurity, but wild ecosystems and forestry would dwindle making Earth almost uninhabitable.
Dr Anna Gajda is head of the Department of Pathology and Veterinary Diagnostics and head of the Laboratory of Bee Diseases at Warsaw University of Life Sciences. Her work involves researching bee pathology, mentoring the next generation of scientists as they navigate their degrees and educating industry professionals on the prevention and control of disease in bees.
“It never gets boring,” she told SiliconRepublic.com. “There are so many new things we are learning about bees everyday and many interesting topics yet to be researched and explored. Besides being a bee vet and a researcher, you can be like Sherlock Holmes and for example solve the mystery of the vanishing bees.”
Dr Anna Gajda. Image: Isabel de Oliveira
Why does pollination matter?
According to Gajda, “pollination services are one of the most important mechanisms in the maintenance and promotion of biodiversity and life on Earth. They provide food supply for many animal species, both managed and wild, and at the same time allow floral growth, which provides habitats for animals.”
“Pollination is considered a paramount process in both human managed and natural terrestrial ecosystems, because without pollination, many interconnected species and processes functioning within ecosystems would collapse,” she explained.
Animals, and particularly insects, are responsible for pollinating almost 90pc of all flowering plant species, affecting 35pc of the world’s crop production. This is “every third spoon of food on our tables, which basically means that one-third of the world’s food supply relies on bees,” she said.
We also have the bees to thank for the diversity of our food as many fruits, vegetables, nuts and berries, which are packed with micronutrients and vitamins, come from pollinator-dependent plants.
Rising to the challenges
For the protection of bees as well as the control and prevention of disease, Gajda noted professionals in the industry have a number of challenges to overcome. There are too many managed bee colonies and the worldwide trading of bees enables them to travel from one part of the globe to the other extremely quickly.
This greatly contributes to the spread of pathogens and the introduction of novel diseases in parts of the world they were not previously present in. “This adds up to high colony losses worldwide. Varroa destructor was one of the pathogens spreading this way and for over 40 years now we are still losing a fight with it in Europe, but also elsewhere,” said Gajda.
Wild bees face similar challenges because they often pick up pathogens from flowers and water sources that are heavily used by the managed bees, but aren’t treated for illness. “Remember that there are basically too many honey bees. This is called the pathogen spillover, and makes the wild bees sick, with no prospects for treatment.”
Another obvious and significant danger to wild bees is aggressive agricultural expansion and the popularity of monocultures, that is the cultivation of a single crop type in an area. “The land use by farmers deprives them of nesting sites, as pieces of land left alone for prolonged periods of time are getting smaller and smaller.”
Monocultures are resulting in little to no food for bees and then there is the issue of pesticides. “Honeybees are much more resistant to pesticide presence on their food sources, but that doesn’t mean they are not being harmed by them, whereas wild bees are much more susceptible and can be poisoned very easily,” she said.
Luckily, there have been many significant breakthroughs in Gajda’s field of research, for instance, she cited a team of scientists in Denmark who, with the help of a group of beekeepers, created bees with a resistance to nosemosis, an extremely dangerous parasite that can kill colonies.
Gajda noted many researchers are also working on breeding bees resistant to varroosis, the most lethal of bee diseases. “All over the world bee colonies managing Varroa destructor infestations have started appearing, which gives us great hope that in the near future, this globally spread and deadly parasite will not be a problem anymore.”
Do your bit
When asked who is responsible for ensuring the protection and survival of bees, Gajda said she thinks the answer is multifaceted. “It is a multidisciplinary approach, as the veterinary services are usually involved in prevention and control of bee diseases, as well as other institutions that take care of bee protection, like the environment-protection oriented government structures,” she said.
But it does not start and stop with just institutional involvement. She believes everyone is responsible for the protection of bees. “We are gifted so much from them, we are obliged to give something back, and we really can,” she said.
For Gajda, it is as simple as planting native flowers, establishing local community projects to maintain flowering meadows instead of short, green spaces and limiting the amount of times you cut your lawn. “Those actions will provide food for bees as well as shelter, especially for the wild bee species.
“Start paying attention to the little critters around you, they are fascinating and will give you many ideas to pursue great research. Be patient and humble, as bees are practically a force of nature.”
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