Safeguarding agroecosystem's resilience under climate change through efficient pollination and sustainable beekeeping – SafeAgroBee

The overall objective of SafeAgroBee is to contribute to adaptation and mitigation of the effects of climate change and other drivers negatively influencing the sustainability and the resilience of the agricultural system in the Mediterranean basin, ensuring the income of farmers and food security. In SafeAgroBee we focus on beekeeping and pollination provided by both wild and managed bees as important drivers in ruling food security and human existence. To this aim, SafeAgroBee will specifically address the following: 1) examine the resilience of bee pollinators (Apis and non Apis bees) on a changing environment towards pollination services and productivity by a) documenting wild and domesticated bee contribution to the pollination of key crops; b) determining the carrying capacity of several crops as a novel approach for bee productivity and c) by projecting historical climatic data and bee related data in today's conditions; 2) investigate the adaptability of local bee populations and the application of optimal practices under climate change in order to ensure sustainable beekeeping by monitoring the development and the performance of local populations and their resistance to diseases for long periods; 3) support the development of mitigation strategies ensuring the health of the bees and provide advice for the beekeepers by comparing the health and productivity of the honey bee colonies between different agricultural ecosystems and by performing alternative and new strategies to control bee diseases; 4) develop innovative monitoring tools and precision apiculture systems for advanced data acquisition by building on sounds, bee movements and heat detection, also enhancing business potential; 5) test and validate novel models for predicting the health of the bees, as for example the Health Status Index, as well as their productivity in terms of honey and pollination services based on two strong conditions, i) on previous experience, developments and knowledge and ii) on the large data sets with very accurate data and from diverse climatological conditions; 6) adopt a Citizen Science approach to interact and collaborate with all stakeholders and the citizens, thus performing a multi-actor approach at all levels; furthermore by forming an active Advisory Board we ensure extra scientific support and input in re-designing farming strategies to stakeholders' needs.
Our main and specific objectives fall exactly under the scope of this particular call, as we are going to address specifically the challenges which have been identified in the call. We recognize that preserving the ecosystem, the resilience of pollinators and bees and sustainable beekeeping practices are among the major challenges of our time. We are going to address and tackle all these topics through the monitoring of different management practices of bees both in terms of their own health and productivity, but also in their pollination services. Droughts and pest invasions, losses of bees’ and other pollinators’ biodiversity due to use of agrochemicals, and possible changes in the plant -pollinator interactions, urges for sustainable solutions in the agroecosystem models, and our proposal aims to tackle exactly those drivers and to seek for alternatives using precision apiculture systems and smart digital technologies as well as different modeling tools for scenario analysis and the planning of strategic management. Here we will also test different mitigation strategies in order to ensure sustainability in a continuously changing environment, also with in areas experiencing harsh conditions exist (e.g. the dry areas). Building resilient ‘farming systems’ is our aim, and we are going to tackle this in two directions, from the beekeepers and the farmers perspective.