BUMBLEbees nutritional uPgrades for toLerance Against plant protectioN products
▶Summary
Pollination is a vital ecosystemic service for human well-being and subsistence. Pollinators including bumblebees (bees from the Bombus genus) are a keystone for the correct development of this service. Despite their importance, pollinators' population and diversity are extremely threatened by factors linked with human impacts like Plant Protection Products (PPPs, like pesticides) and land use. Because of this, both private and public efforts and funding are aimed at guaranteeing pollinators' biodiversity and health status. Project BUMBLE-PLAN set its basis on this premise but simultaneously included a new and holistic perspective on the role of the gut microbiome on the health status (pathogens control and detoxification pathways) of bees. The main objective of this project is to improve the resilience of managed bumblebees by developing a nutritional supplement capable of providing resistance to PPP commonly used in the agricultural sector and indirectly conferring resistance to various pathogenic organisms that may affect them in synergy. To assess this objective BUMBLE-PLAN is proposed with cutting-edge methodologies like BIOLOG, NGS (WGS) and gene expression qPCR. The results obtained are expected to improve our understanding of the ability of bacteria to metabolize PPP's and clean the environment. As a result, a new sustainable and ecological tool would be acquired to improve pollinators' health and theecosystem. From these contributions provided by the BUMBLE-PLAN project, it is expected that new research questions will be generated (mainly around the One-Health concept) that will be addressed through the application for future funding, encouraging further internal research. For the correct implementation of the BUMBLE-PLAN project this proposal combines the expertise in pollinator´s behaviour and pathology of the fellow and the infrastructure and wide knowledge - experience of Prof Diana Di Goia and her teamwork at the University of Bologna