“Native bees” is a buzzword and is becoming more and more a synonym for all bee species except honey bees. Not even all honey bees: Generally, it’s used to contrast Western honey bees, Apis mellifera. It mainly comes from North American and Australian bee researchers. In these regions, honey bees aren’t native. Therefore, the contrast…
Bee health and biodiversity may not be the most obvious connection. The first thing that comes to your mind could be flower diversity – it’s important for bee nutrition and, therefore, health. But this time, it’s all about the value of biodiversity for avoiding virus infections. Something mostly unexplored. To be honest, a connection I…
Silent hunger means a deficiency of nutrients that affects billions of people worldwide. When wanting to eradicate hunger it’s not only about the calories – the vitamins, the minerals, and antioxidants are important, too. And that’s where pollinators come in. I already talked about the – in my opinion – missed opportunity of including pollinators in the International Year of Fruit and Vegetables. In addition…
FAO declared 2021 the International Year of Fruit and Vegetables. They want to attract attention to the importance of fruit and veggies for healthy nutrition. In the end, it’s also about ending poverty, as these food crops give farmers income and foster more diverse agriculture. Another objective is to reduce waste and losses in food…
Over my winter break, I tried to recap this crazy year that 2020 has been. The pandemic was the dominant influence for everybody. I had some diffuse thoughts in my head, about parallels in different fields of research. Watching this brilliant video by Medlife Crisis, everything kind of fell into place. Dr Rohin Francis is…
Our land use is a reason for concern: with the increasing human population on earth, we’re claiming more and more of it. We use it to build houses, streets – and to produce our food on it. With all those humans needing food, crop production has focussed on maximizing yields. This has caused undeniable problems….
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