Table Of ContentGuy Smagghe · Otto Boecking
Bettina Maccagnani · Marika Mänd
Peter G. Kevan Editors
Entomovectoring for
Precision Biocontrol
and Enhanced
Pollination of Crops
Entomovectoring for Precision Biocontrol
and Enhanced Pollination of Crops
Guy Smagghe • Otto Boecking
Bettina Maccagnani • Marika Mänd
Peter G. Kevan
Editors
Entomovectoring for
Precision Biocontrol
and Enhanced Pollination
of Crops
Editors
Guy Smagghe Otto Boecking
Department of Plants and Crops, Lower Saxony State Office for Consumer
Faculty of Bioscience Engineering Protection and Food Safety
Ghent University Institute for Apiculture
Ghent, Belgium Celle, Germany
Bettina Maccagnani Marika Mänd
Centro Agricoltura Ambiente “Giorgio Nicoli” Institute of Agricultural and Environmental
Crevalcore, Bologna, Italy Sciences
Estonian University of Life Sciences
Peter G. Kevan Tartu, Estonia
School of Environmental Sciences
University of Guelph
Guelph, ON, Canada
ISBN 978-3-030-18916-7 ISBN 978-3-030-18917-4 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-18917-4
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Preface
We are happy to present this unique book, not only because of its novelty and inter-
disciplinary content but also because it provides a different view on bees and how
we can employ their pollination behaviour for biodiversity and sustainability on our
planet. Yes, the major evolutionary diversification of nectaries in late Cretaceous
flowers, about 120 million years ago, also signals the beginning of the mutualism
between Hymenoptera and angiosperms. Bees are the best example of this mutual-
ism. When bees go from flower to flower collecting pollen, they also deposit pollen
grains onto the flowers, thereby pollinating them.
Indeed, today, the role of insects in pollinating flowers is a commonplace.
Pollinating insects by their very activity spread tiny particles (pollen grains) between
plants, so why not using them to disseminate other tiny particles, such as microbes,
that can serve to suppress plant pests and pathogens? This book is a collection of
papers that reviews the concepts and technology that have been developed over the
past recent decades and explains some specific applications for crop protection.
Chapter 1 introduces some of the newer approaches to using managed pollinators
and conserving wild pollinators in agricultural settings. The diversification of
approaches to using managed pollination and the roles of wild pollinators in agri-
culturally dominated landscapes set the stage for the scope of using pollinators for
other beneficial roles, including pest management. Chapter 2 places the concepts of
“bee vectoring technology” (BVT) as “entomovectoring” or “apivectoring” into the
framework of “ecological intensification”, a newly coined concept of using and
managing biodiversity and ecosystem complexity in agriculture. It also explores,
with comprehensive thoroughness, the scope of apivectoring science with respect to
the kinds of pollinators that can be used and the kinds of biocontrol agents that can
be disseminated by pollinators for suppression of crop pathogens and pest arthro-
pods. It recognizes the potential of using technology in protecting managed pollina-
tors from diseases and parasites and also introduces the multifactorial issues of
using the technology in responsible ways from assessing the agents, the diluents, the
delivery systems and the possible consequences in the human food chain and envi-
ronment as they pertain to practical application for food security. Of course, there
are regulatory issues to be considered, and they are reviewed in useful detail in
v
vi Preface
Chap. 14. Moreover, it also recognizes that arthropods used in biocontrol pro-
grammes could serve as vectors of other beneficial microbes. Chapters 3 and 15
introduce the value and service of bees as pollinators of crops. Chapter 15 focuses
on commercially available managed bumblebees. As such, both chapters serve to
cement the links between Chaps. 1 and 2.
Chapter 4 delves deeper into pollinator diversity and focuses on the use and
potential of the diversity of solitary bees that are used for crop pollination. As such,
Chap. 4 is an important segue, especially for Chap. 6 which explores the diversity
of dispensing devices that can be used on the wide diversity of managed pollinator
domiciles. These range from the familiar beehive through to domiciles for bumble-
bees and to the challenges posed by various artificially produced nesting arrange-
ments for solitary bees. Chapter 5, as a specific example, explores the successful use
of bumblebees in open field conditions for entomovectoring fungal disease sup-
pressing agents for strawberry crop protection. This chapter is the first in the book
that addresses specific examples. Chapter 7 zeroes in on the successful application
of the technology in greenhouse vegetable and fruit production. Chapter 8 presents
a case study for the utility of the technology in setting the stage for addressing apple
storage rot problems at the time of apple pollination. Chapter 9 suggests that an
invasive species of pestiferous fruit fly could be suppressed by using pollinators as
entomovectors of entomopathogenic microbes. This chapter further expands the
potential of entomovectoring against agricultural insect pests as reviewed in Chap. 2.
Coffee is globally the most traded and valuable agricultural commodity and benefits
from the activities of managed and wild pollinators. Chapter 10 addresses the poten-
tial for the use of pollinator entomovectoring by Africanized (“killer” or “assassin”)
honeybees for the suppression of several coffee diseases and insect pests on the
basis of practical research experience in Brazil, Mexico and Ecuador. Chapter 11
explains how bumblebees have been used successfully in Serbia (and in Canada) to
suppress sunflower head rot, potentially a very valuable technology for high value-
added hybrid seed and confection seed production. In Chap. 12, a comprehensive
study from Colombia is reviewed. It explains the successes achieved by using
Africanized honeybees as vectors of a biological control agent against fungus dis-
eases on commercially operating strawberry farms. The work is explained from the
conceptual base through to the economic advantages to farmers.
In Chap. 13, it is recognized that certain pest insects spread crop diseases but that
they could also be used to spread microbes that fight the very diseases the pest
insects also carry.
Throughout the book, the authors have made specific mention of the funding
agencies that have supported their research and development. Important was the
ERA-Net named “Coordination of European Transnational Research in Organic
Food and Farming Systems” with the “Bicopoll” project. Special and general thanks
are extended to the “International Commission for Plant-Pollinator Relationships”
(ICP-PR) and the “International Union of Biological Sciences” (IUBS) for their
overarching support on a global level and especially for the sessions at the “XI
International Symposium on Pollination” in Berlin (2018) and sponsoring the
“International Advanced Course on Using Managed Pollinators for Dissemination
Preface vii
of Biological Control Agents for Suppression of Insect, Fungal & Other Pests of
Crops” held in Belgrade, Serbia, 6–10 May 2019.
Thank you for sharing with us this introduction to a complex, yet easily acces-
sible subject of great fascination! This book is intended for people with interest in
bees, nature, agriculture and novel technologies to students, teachers, experts and
the common man/woman worldwide.
Guelph, ON, Canada Peter G. Kevan
Ghent, Belgium Guy Smagghe
17 June 2020
Contents
Agroecosystem Design Supports the Activity
of Pollinator Networks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
Bettina Maccagnani, Eve Veromann, Roberto Ferrari, Luca Boriani,
and Otto Boecking
Ecological Intensification: Managing Biocomplexity
and Biodiversity in Agriculture Through Pollinators,
Pollination and Deploying Biocontrol Agents against
Crop and Pollinator Diseases, Pests and Parasites . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
Peter G. Kevan, Les Shipp, and Guy Smagghe
Bee Pollination of Crops: A Natural and Cost-Free
Ecological Service . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
Otto Boecking and Eve Veromann
Solitary Bees As Pollinators . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63
Bettina Maccagnani and Fabio Sgolastra
Bumble Bees and Entomovectoring in Open Field Conditions . . . . . . . . . 81
Marika Mänd, Reet Karise, and Guy Smagghe
Dispensers for Entomovectoring: For Every Bee a Different Type? . . . . . 95
Bettina Maccagnani, Matti Pisman, and Guy Smagghe
Case Studies on Entomovectoring in the Greenhouse
and Open Field . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123
Guy Smagghe
A Case Study: Use of Prestop® Mix Biofungicide
in Entomovectoring on Apple Against Storage Rot Diseases . . . . . . . . . . . 137
Marja-Leena Lahdenperä
ix
x Contents
Threat of Drosophila suzukii as an Invasive Species
and the Potential of Entomovectoring . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 147
Clauvis N. T. Taning and Guy Smagghe
The Potential of Bee Vectoring on Coffee in Brazil . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 165
Juliana Macedo, Blandina Viana, Breno Freitas, Adriana Medeiros,
Peter G. Kevan, and Carlos H. Vergara
Using Bumblebees (Bombus terrestris) as Bioagent Vectors
to Control Sclerotinia Head Rot on Sunflower in Serbia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 183
Sreten Terzić, Boško Dedić, Sonja Tančić Živanov, Željko Milovac,
Filip Franeta, Miroslav Zorić, Ljubiša Stanisavljević,
and Peter G. Kevan
Advances in the Implementation of Apivectoring Technology
in Colombia: Strawberry Case (Fragaria x ananassa) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 201
Saira Espinosa, Judith Figueroa, Peter G. Kevan, Carlos Baéz,
Victor Solarte, Guy Smagghe, and Andres Sánchez
Making a Pest Beneficial: Fungus Gnats [Bradysia impatiens
(Diptera: Sciaridea)] as Potential Vectors of Microbial Control
Agents to Suppress Pathogens they Also Spread . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 239
Jean-Pierre Kapongo, Peter G. Kevan, Les Shipp, and Hisatomo Taki
Regulatory Processes Surrounding the Risk Assessment
of Microbial Pesticides for Pollinators . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 251
Emily A. McVey and Jacoba Wassenberg
Flying Doctors for a Better Quality in Fruit Production . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 263
Maria I. Pozo, Julien Vendeville, Veerle Mommaerts, and Felix Wackers
Agroecosystem Design Supports
the Activity of Pollinator Networks
Bettina Maccagnani, Eve Veromann, Roberto Ferrari, Luca Boriani,
and Otto Boecking
1 Some Principle Needs of Honey Bees and Wild Bees
Throughout Europe, farmland comprises the major part of land use, namely 48% of
the land is agricultural land (European Commission 2016). Traditionally, agricul-
tural land use and biodiversity have been thought to be at opposite extremes, but
arable land can be heterogeneous also. Intensively cultivated areas should ideally
interchange with non-cultivated and semi-natural elements (green-veins) such as
field margins, set asides, woods, hedgerows, brooks, ditches etc. and provide many
suitable habitats and resources for the wide range of species common in agricultural
landscapes (Bennett et al. 2006; Diekötter et al. 2008; Meek et al. 2002; Tscharntke
et al. 2008). These resources include mating and overwintering habitats, food and
alternative host resources, shelters and protection from agro-technical activities
(Holland et al. 2016). Certainly, the majority of arthropods in agricultural land-
scapes are reliant on the existence of semi-natural habitats. Thus, semi-natural habi-
tats have the potential to provide and/or support several ecosystem services that are
Bettina Maccagnani - Scientific advisor for the Automobili Lamborghini project “Environmental
Biomonitoring with Honey Bees: Science and Education”
B. Maccagnani (*) · R. Ferrari (*) · L. Boriani
Centro Agricoltura Ambiente “Giorgio Nicoli”, Crevalcore, Bologna, Italy
e-mail: [email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected]
E. Veromann
Department Plant Protection, Institute of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences,
Estonian University of Life Sciences, Tartu, Estonia
e-mail: [email protected]
O. Boecking
Lower Saxony State Office for Consumer Protection and Food Safety,
Institute for Apiculture, Celle, Germany
e-mail: [email protected]
© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 1
G. Smagghe et al. (eds.), Entomovectoring for Precision Biocontrol and
Enhanced Pollination of Crops, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-18917-4_1
