Identifying Keystone Plant Species in Pollinator communities  

o   PI: Jane Memmott 

o   £ 2300

Pollination is an essential ecosystem service for crop production and wild plant reproduction, declines have however been reported in pollinators in many countries. Keystone plants should ideally be targets in conservation or restoration programmes as they are likely to facilitate pollinator establishment and survival. The aim of this research proposal is to identify keystone plants in pollinator communities by identifying plants that are visited disproportionately more than expected according to their abundance.

“Ecoelectrics” as a novel and passive method for the monitoring of arthropods 

o   Investigators: Rochelle Meah, Liam O’Reilly & Nick Roberts

o   £ 3071.00

 

This project will develop and validate a novel ‘ecoelectrics’ device for the passive and automatic monitoring of terrestrial arthropods. The device will use a simple electrostatic charge sensor to detect the presence and passing of arthropods by detecting the electric fields produced by all organisms. The device will be cheap and accessible to use and will enable professional and amateur ecologists to collect important ecological information, such as local abundance, phenology, and dispersal rates, that often underpin the conservation or control of target species.

Balancing kin-avoidance and natal homing in small populations of anemone fish on isolated pinnacle reefs  

o   Investigators: Hugo Harrison 

o   £ 3201.00

Group living has many evolutionary benefits by increasing the fitness of all individuals in the group. However, in small populations with high levels of self-replenishment, close kin must avoid mating or carry the evolutionary costs of inbreeding. In this project we test whether kin-avoidance is stronger when the risk of inbreeding is greater. We compare the relatedness of pink skunk anemonefish (Amphiprion perideraion) in small populations (<50 breeding pairs) atop three pinnacle reefs in Kimbe Bay, Papua New Guinea to larger island populations. Due to their isolation, pinnacle populations are likely to depend entirely on self-replenishment. This combination of small size and isolation provides a unique opportunity to investigate the evolutionary mechanisms driving natal homing and kin-recognition in group-living fishes. The project will support post-graduate research in the School of Biological Sciences and collaborations with international partners to investigate the role of dispersal in the social evolution of reef fishes. 

Employing a metabolomic approach to investigate exploitative competition between winter-active beneficial insects and the implications for ecosystem service provision (MetaComp)  

o   Investigators:  Lucy Alford, Daisy Scott & Martin How 

o   £ 2566.00

Agricultural intensification in recent decades has resulted in widespread declines in beneficial biodiversity and the degradation of economically important ecosystem services including natural pest control and pollination. In an attempt to reverse trends in biodiversity loss, habitat management programs (e.g. flower strips, inter-crop covers, beetle-banks) aimed at enhancing the abundance and diversity of flowering plants in arable landscapes have been implemented to protect farmland environments and foster ecosystem service delivery. However, the impact of such conservation measures on ecological interactions and networks is often neglected. With modern agroecosystems largely homogenous, with low floral diversity, competitive interactions may arise between flower-visiting species, creating antagonisms between ecosystem services. Furthermore, many beneficial temperate insects are becoming increasingly winter-active as a consequence of warming winters and, as such, novel competitive interactions between flower-visiting insects in winter will only increase. Much research has been performed on competition between pollinators such as wild bees and the domestic honeybee, driven by concerns over declining wild bee populations. However, little is known about competitive interactions between bee pollinators and other beneficial flower-visiting insects, such as parasitoid wasps; important pest control agents that rely on nectar as a sugar source. Using a novel metabolomic approach (the profiling of low-molecular-weight metabolites in tissues), this project will investigate competition between pollinators and parasitoids over winter floral resources, and the implications for the ecosystem service of pest control.

 Assessing the soundscapes of the southern Egyptian Red Sea coastline 

o   Madeline Gasparro, Dominique Baptiste and Emily Lane 

o   £ 3,761.00

Coral reefs are vibrant ecosystems that are pivotal to the health of our oceans, serving as the lifeblood for more than 25% of marine species during various life stages. The past few decades have witnessed an alarming and multifaceted global decline in coral reefs, attributable in part to anthropogenic stressors, including climate change and light pollution. Monitoring coral reef health is therefore imperative in helping predict and potentially prevent the detrimental impacts of these stressors.   

 This project has three parts: to build on limited soundscape identification knowledge, to assess the drivers of variation in coral reef soundscapes across a gradient of habitat degradation and to determine impacts of light pollution on biological activity. Multiple recording devices will be deployed, within healthy and degraded reef habitats along the coastline of Marsa Alam, Egypt – a rich coral reef ecosystem located in the Red Sea. Throughout this project we will collaborate with HEPCA, an Egyptian environmental group specialising in marine conservation, to share knowledge as well as assist with outreach activities we will be conducting.     

The ultimate aim of this project is to help underpin the development of monitoring and mitigation strategies in response to anthropogenic stressors.  

Does land use affect pesticide exposure of honeybee colonies?​

• Investigators: Dr Christoph Grueter & Dr Rajbir Kaur​
• Date: May 2023
• Amount: £2,828

Project summary: Honeybees are ecologically and economically important pollinators, yet they also face a cocktail of anthropogenic challenges, including pesticides and land-use change.These two factors have been shown to contribute to poor colony health. This project aims to investigate the links between pesticide exposure and land use by measuring the presence of pesticide residues in honeybees from colonies kept in different habitats that range from strongly urban to strongly rural. We will monitor colony foraging activity and hive weight of 36 hives kept in 18 locations in the Southwest of England for 4 months (July-October), before collecting foragers from these hives for pesticide residue screening. Using Liquid chromatography–mass spectrometry (LCMS/MS), the bee samples will be screened for residues of nearly 100 pesticides in the Cornell Chemical Ecology Core Facility. Our results will shed light on the risks bees face in different environments and the potential impact of pesticides on honeybee health. The findings can help promote sustainable land use practices to protect bee populations and maintain their pollination services.  

Indirect effects of neonicotinoid insecticides on disease susceptibility in ants​

Investigators: Nathalie Stroeymeyt & Daniel Schlaeppi
Date: May 2023
Amount: £6,177

Project summary: Social insects such as ants play crucial roles in terrestrial ecosystems and provide essential ecosystem services. However, there is growing evidence of declining insect populations worldwide due to the combined effects of multiple stressors, including pesticides and pathogens. Neonicotinoid insecticides can impair immune functions of individual insects, making them more susceptible to pathogens, potentially leading to synergistic interactions between the two stressors. In social insects, collective disease defence behaviours are arguably more important than individual immunity in providing protection against disease. However, it is currently unknown whether these behaviours are also disrupted by insecticides. Using state-of-the-art data collection and analytical tools, the proposed project will investigate whether neonicotinoids disrupt the collective disease defences of ants when challenged with fungal pathogens. Ultimately, the project will advance our understanding of stressor interactions in social insects, which is essential for adequate conservation measures.

Cas9-based targeted metagenomics​

Investigators: Dr Thomas Gorochowski, Christopher Cammies & Dr Rosemary Crichton
Date: May 2023
Amount: £2,633

‌Project summary: The health of a soil ecosystem is often linked to the numbers and types of nematodes that are present. More complex mixtures of nematodes are commonly found in healthy, undisturbed soils, while more homogeneous compositions are found when soil has become degraded. Furthermore, plant parasitic nematodes are a major problem for farmers in terms of their crop yields and can restrict the movement of plants across borders hampering livelihoods. At present, classifying the communities of nematodes resent in a soil sample is a costly, slow, and laborious process. In this project, we aim to directly address this issue by applying a cutting-edge targeted DNA sequencing approach based on CRISPR-Cas9 technology. Our methodology will allow us to specify precise regions of nematode genomes that can then be read to distinguish the composition of species present within a sample. This project offers the chance for us to rapidly quantify the nematodes present in a soil sample in a simple and easy to use manner that can:

(1) help us better monitor and understand the diversity of life in these vital ecosystems; (2) enable more comprehensive ecological studies of soil health; and (3) support new innovate teaching approaches that leans on the reduced cost of our methodology.

Sensory ecology, brains and adaptive speciation in Andean Heliconius butterflies​

Investigators: David Rivas Sanchez & Dr Stephen Montgomery​
Date: May 2023
Amount: £7,060

‌Project summary: Species are often isolated by environmental conditions that affect the sensory information that they are exposed to, but how does local adaptation to these conditions influence the evolution of new species? A particularly exciting opportunity to peer into evolution’s inner workings lies in special cases of “incomplete” speciation. An influential, ecologically well-characterised example involves sister species of the Neotropical butterfly genus, Heliconius. Heliconius himera and Heliconius erato cyrbia are two separate species which inhabit distinct ecosystems that overlap in a narrow intermediate zone where the two coexist, mate and produce hybrid offspring. This raises questions about the opposing forces of gene-flow, resulting from ongoing interbreeding, and local selection to maintain the species’ identity. Recently, comparative studies have revealed behavioural and neuroanatomical differences between young Heliconius species, isolated across environments gradients. It is thought that these might reflect adaptations to optimally perceive and respond to the sensory environment. This provides new data suggesting a role for local adaptation in sensory processing in creating fitness differences between diverging populations,  and partially explains why closely related, sympatric species are present in some habitats while being absent in others. If sensory perception is miss-matched to the sensory environment, lower survival may result from a poorer response to the environment, manifested as, for example, less efficient foraging behaviour. This may ultimately contribute to species separation. Recent speciation events such as between H. himera and H. erato, together with their natural hybrids provide an opportunity to investigate the potential effects of missmatches between brain structure and sensory environments on reproductive isolation. We aim to investigate this emerging axis of speciation by analyzing neuroanatomical differences between wild butterflies identified as “pure” and hybrids, and through mark-release-recapture experiments with insectary reared (sterilised) hybrids released in the parental habitats. 

HI-FAB: Towards the development of High functioning Functional Agricultural Biodiversity to support beneficial insects in winter and boost ecosystem service provision 

• Principle investigator: Dr Lucy Alford
• Date: November 2022
• Amount: £6,454

‌‌Project summary: During winter months, insects are faced with challenging cold temperatures. To survive these conditions, some insects enter a cold-tolerant diapause state. However, as a consequence of warming winters in temperate regions, many beneficial insects are no longer entering into a winter diapause and are instead remaining winter-active. This is rendering beneficial insects increasingly susceptible to winter conditions, particularly during a time when food sources are scarce, with implications for the beneficial ecosystem services (e.g. natural pest control and pollination) they provide. Cold stress is costly to the individual and, as such, nutrition plays an important role in an individual’s ability to survive unfavourable temperatures. For this reason, supplementary feeding may enhance the thermal tolerance and thus winter survival of insects. In agricultural landscapes this may be achieved via plant diversification schemes with a focus on winter flowering species to provide beneficial insects with a source of nectar and pollen, as well as overwintering and nesting sites, during the unfavourable winter months. One such insect that is increasingly winter-active are the parasitoid wasps of the genus Aphidius. These parasitoids play a vital role in agricultural systems as a natural enemy of cereal aphid pests. Utilising Aphidius wasps as a study organism, the proposed project will investigate the potential for cultivated winter flowering plants as a supplementary food (nectar) source to boost Aphidius cold stress tolerance and thus winter survival. Ultimately the project will contribute towards the development of multifunctional flower strips to support beneficial insect biodiversity in agricultural landscapes and enhance the vital ecosystem services they provide. 

The ontogeny of complex communication; a comparative investigation of a songbird and cetacean

• Principle Investigator: Dr Stephanie King
• Date: November 2022
• Amount: £8,446

‌‌Project summary: The study of shared complex vocal features in humans and animals has the potential to uncover the evolutionary origins of complex communication and shed new light on human language evolution. However, in order to determine how these complex vocal features come to be, we must look at how vocalisations develop in infancy, yet research in this area is notably lacking. In this project, we will use two well-established study systems to provide novel insight into the early vocal development of complex communication in free-living animals; the highly vocally and socially complex Western Australian magpie and the Indo-Pacific bottlenose dolphin. We will determine how their vocal repertoires develop from birth relative to the vocal models they are exposed to in their social environments, and how the strength of association with different social contacts might affect this development. This project represents a new research collaboration between University of Bristol and University of Western Australia, providing a unique opportunity to initiate an international collaboration among leading researchers in their respective fields to address a novel and interesting question: how communicative complexity evolves.

Investigating the use of solid waste from recirculating aquaculture as a novel fertiliser via pot trials with tomatoes and potatoes

• Investigators: Dr Rosemary Crichton and Christopher Cammies 
• Date: November 2022
• Amount: £5,029.03

Project summary: This project seeks to evaluate the efficacy of sludge (waste solids from recirculating aquaculture) as a fertiliser for tomatoes and potatoes (key crops of interest for glasshouse and outdoor agricultural production) in enhancing crop yields, maintaining soil health and supporting complex nematode assemblages that may suppress populations of destructive plant parasitic nematodes. The upcoming bans for many nematicides in the UK, high amount of global carbon emissions released making artificial fertilisers, the scarcity of phosphorus and the need to minimise the environmental impact of waste disposal from recirculating aquaculture would suggest that positive findings in this study could have an almost immediate impact for both the agricultural and aquaculture sectors.

Colony defence in a host-parasite system in Neotropical stingless bees 

• Principle Investigator: Dr Christoph Grueter
• Date: June 2022
• Amount: £2,290 

‌Project summary: Stingless bees are the most diverse group of social bees and the most abundant pollinators in the tropics. One of the main threats to stingless bees are cleptoparasitic robber bees, which frequently raid nests and kill the attacked colonies. Despite their lack of a sting, stingless bees are not defenceless. One effective adaptation are so-called soldier bees, ie. nest entrance guards that are larger and stronger than their nestmates. The first soldier bees were discovered in the common Neotropical species Tetragonisca angustula.

The entrance guards of T.angustula aggressively attack robber bees that attempt to enter their colony, often recruiting dozens or hundreds of nestmates to fight against the robbers. Such a large-scale defensive response could impact the foraging activity of colonies and lower the colony foraging success of attacked colonies. This host-parasite system provides an excellent opportunity to quantify the costs and benefits of colony defence in an ecologically and culturally important bee species.

This project will study (Aim 1) if robber bee attacks depend on the number of entrance guards in T. angustula colonies and (Aim 2) assess whether an increase in guard number has a negative impact on foraging performance of host colonies. It will allow us to (Aim 3) re-establish a collaboration with the University of Sao Paulo which has been interrupted because of the pandemic. The anticipated results will build a foundation for a future research program to study co-evolution of a tropical host-parasite system under natural conditions.