Use of geospatial techniques to improve bee farming and bee health across four main agroecological zones in Kenya.

Doctoral Degree. University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg.Amid augmented climate change and anthropogenic influence on natural environments and agricultural systems, the global socioeconomic and environmental value of bees is undisputed. Bee products such as honey, pollen, nectar, royal jelly and to a lesser extent bee venom are important supplemental sources of income generation especially in the underdeveloped rural African areas. Moreover, bee farming is an important incentive for forest conservation, biodiversity and ecosystem services in terms of pollination services. Bee pollination services play a vital role in crop production, hence directly contribute to food and nutritional security for African smallholder farmers. Nevertheless, bee farming and bee health in general are under threat from climate change, agricultural intensification and associated habitat alteration, agrochemicals intensification, bee pests and diseases. Therefore, there is need to establish spatial distribution of bees, their food substrates, floral cycle and biotic and abiotic threats, especially bee pests. Bee pests devastate bee colonies through physical injury and as vectors of pathogens, hence causing a considerable reduction in bee colony productivity. Thus, this study sought to establish geospatial techniques that could be used to improve bee farming and bee health in Kenya. Firstly, this study aimed to determine the spatial and temporal distribution of stingless bees in Kenya using six machine learning ecological niche approaches and non-conflating variables from both bioclimatic, vegetation phenology and topographic features. All machine learning algorithms used herein performed at an ‘excellent’ level with a true skills statistics (TSS) score of up to 0.91. Secondly, the study assessed the suitability of resampled multispectral data for mapping melliferous (flowering plants that produce substance used by bees to produce honey) plants in Kenya. Bi-temporal AISA Eagle hyperspectral images, resampled to four sensors’ (i.e., WorldView-2, RapidEye, Spot- 6 and Sentinel-2) spatial and spectral resolutions, and a RF classifier were used to map melliferous plants. Melliferous plants were successfully mapped with up to 93.33% overall accuracy using WorldView-2. Furthermore, the study predicted the distribution of four main bee pests (Aethina tumida, Galleria mellonella, Oplostomus haroldi and Varroa destructor) in Kenya using the maximum entropy (MaxEnt) model and random forest (RF) classifier. The effect of seasonality on the abundance of bee pests was apparent, as indicated by the Wilcoxon rank sum test, with up to 6.35 times more pests in the wet than the dry season. Furthermore, bioclimatic variables especially precipitation contributed the most (up to 77.8%) to all bee pest predictions, while vegetation phenology provided vital information needed to sharpen the prediction models at grain level due to their higher spatial resolution and seasonal and phenological features. Moreover, topography had a moderate influence (14.3%) on the distribution of bee pests. Also, there was a positive correlation between bee pests’ abundance, habitat suitability and high altitude. Anthropogenic influence (as depicted by human footprint data) on the distribution of bee pests was relatively low (1.2%) due to the availability of a variety of bee food substrate from the mixed land use/land cover (LULC) classes, especially farmlands. Using the Pearson correlation coefficient, the prediction models for all bee pests scored at an excellent level (0.84), except for the G. mellonella prediction model, which was ranked ‘fair’ (0.55). Due to the relatively high accuracy for models developed herein to map stingless bees’ distribution, melliferous plants and bee pests’ occurrence and abundance, this study concluded that the models developed could reliably be used to indicate high suitability areas for bee farming. They could also be used to predict high bee pests risk areas for mitigation and management purposes, hence improving bee health and hive productivity

Pollinator People: an ethnography of bees, bee advocates and possibilities for multispecies commoning in Toronto and London, ON

There is growing scientific evidence showing that many important pollinator species are in decline around the world. Bees are the most important pollinators in many parts of the world, and the combination of population declines in wild bees and widespread health problems among domesticated honey bees have potentially devastating impacts on both ecosystem health and agricultural prospects. Some scientists, native bee advocates, and beekeepers argue that cities can provide a refuge for bees from pesticide-laden rural landscapes, which has contributed to an increase in urban, hobbyist beekeeping and pollinator gardening. This dissertation employs a multispecies ethnography in two cities in Ontario, London and Toronto, to explore how the knowledges and experiences of urban bee advocates – who I call ‘pollinator people’ – shape the ways in which urban spaces are created, used, and managed. My approach is informed by a range of literatures, most notably urban political ecology and heterodox Marxism. A central argument of this dissertation is that urban, hobbyist beekeeping and pollinator gardening allow people to engage in ‘playful work’, a form of concrete, sensuous human activity that evokes feelings of curiosity and wonder. I also stress the importance of considering interspecies relations, highlighting how many of these pollinator people form strong emotional and embodied relationships with bees. Some native bee advocates argue that urban honey bees may cause some harm to native, wild bees through floral competition and pathogen transfer. This research suggests that bee-centred beekeeping utilizing organic management practices may help to sustain healthier, more resilient honey bees. Rather than banishing honey bees to rural landscapes of monocultures and pesticides where they are numerous but sickly, an emphasis should be placed on the creation of landscapes of abundance in which healthier honey bees can flourish together with native wild bees. Urban farms and community gardens are some of the most potent sites for landscapes of abundance in which people flourish alongside bees. Additionally, the experiences of beekeepers who collectively keep honey bees in shared apiaries can provide valuable insight into how humans can negotiate agency and autonomy with the animals whose lives they are managing to some degree. These experiences and knowledges can help create multispecies urban commons in which non-human animals, even insects, are integrated and considered within processes of radical democracy

Microbiome Assembly and Function in the Solitary Mason Bee, \u3ci\u3eOsmia lignaria\u3c/i\u3e (Megachilidae)

Animal-microbe interactions can influence host biology, ecology, and evolution. The assembly and function of microbes found within animal hosts oftentimes depends on which species are involved. Advances in sequencing technologies have permitted the exploration of host-microbe interactions in a variety of animals, including bees. Early research aimed at understanding the microbiomes of social bees, such as honey bees and bumble bees, found that microbes prevent the spoilage of stored pollen, breakdown indigestible nutrients into smaller molecules available for uptake by the host, and also protect the host from pathogens. When environmental stressors, such as increased temperatures, disrupt the microbiome, the host can be negatively affected through direct harm to their symbionts or reductions in symbiont-provided benefits. Only about 10% of bee species worldwide are social however, so the advantages of bee-microbe interactions described above may not apply to most bees species. There is less research describing the microbiomes of solitary bees, including how bacterial and fungal communities change across their bee development and in response to warming temperatures. In the first study of my thesis, I characterized the microbiome of the solitary mason bee, Osmia lignaria, across its development. Specifically, I used amplicon sequencing to determine which bacterial and fungal species are present in provisions (larval food), larvae, and the guts of adult bees before and after overwintering. I found bacterial and fungal diversity did not change across bee samples. However, the composition of bacterial and fungal communities was significantly different between larvae and adult bees before the onset of winter. Larvae seem to acquire their microbiome from provisions, as many of the bacterial and fungi found in pollen was also detected in larvae. Notably, Arsenophonus was the most abundant bacterial genus, and had high sequence similarity to a vertically transmitted species that results in the death of male offspring. The causative agent of chalkbrood, Ascosphaera, was also found in provisions and larvae. Most other bacteria and fungi present were plant pathogens and those commonly found in soil. This study suggests that solitary bees harbor microbes with diverse functions that are acquired from the environment or are maternally transmitted. For my second project, I conducted an experimental study to determine how temperature affects the microbiome composition of provisions and the resulting effects on solitary bee development and health. Specifically, we measured the body weight and fat content of male O. lignaria reared on sterile or microbe-rich provisions within incubators emulating past, current, and projected temperatures for the Great Basin region (USA). As anticipated, the time it took larvae to develop shortened with increasing temperatures. We detected a positive relationship between temperature and the mean relative abundance of Arsenophonus, a putative male-killing symbiont. While our sterilization method removed the reproductive parasite from pollen in the sterile treatment, there was no difference in larval survivorship between bees reared on sterile and microbe-rich provisions. Contrary to past research, larvae reared on microbe-rich provisions had a lower biomass and total fat content than those reared on sterile provisions, indicating that an intact provision microbiota may not always be beneficial to larval health. Temperature increased the difference in the mean weight and fat content between larvae consuming sterile and microbe-rich provisions, with the warmest microclimate having the greatest effect. We conclude that microbes found in the provision of solitary bees may have played a role in decreasing bee body size over the past several decades of warming

Co-designing age-friendly neighborhood spaces in Copenhagen: Starting with an age-friendly co-design process

Age-friendly cities and communities are currently attracting much attention as the ageing population becomes a larger proportion of our societies and their needs and aspirations become more diverse, which needs to be reflected in our cities. This calls for older people to play an active role in the design of suitable environments, e.g., by being involved in the design process. With this paper, we present a study where the methodology of co-design was used to engage 100+ older people in a low-income neighborhood in Copenhagen in designing new neighborhood spaces to reflect their needs and wishes. By focusing on the co-design process, and not the design solution, we investigate and present insights across the entire span of the process—from recruitment to implementation—and seek to extract particular elements that contribute to the age friendliness of the process. Recommendations for future co-design processes with older people include focusing on explicit communication and foreseeable steps to create a process that offers multiple and flexible participation options and to upgrade the latter stages of the co-design process through scale 1:1 prototyping and implementation. The findings contribute to both the professional practice of co-designing with older people on a spatial scale, as well as to policy makers and practice stakeholders when initiating initiatives with age-friendly cities and communities