As a PIFI postdoctoral researcher, I’ve had the good fortune of visiting many provinces across China, and even other countries. Working on bees in the lab of Professor Zhu Chaodong, one of my primary projects is building the evolutionary tree of the 700 species of Anthophorinae digger bees, and I was recently awarded funding from the National Natural Science Foundation of China for scaling up my international research. When I was invited to attend the 2nd Bangalore Meeting on Asian Bees in India, and then a second meeting in 2020 in Kolkata, I knew that these conferences would greatly enhance my ability to do research throughout Asia, and I was excited to experience additional cultures.

My first destination was the Western Ghats, one of India’s most biodiverse areas, and I’m very thankful to Professor Vasuki Belavadi and his lab for taking me there. Dominating the southwestern edge of India, this enormous mountain range is home to almost 40 percent of endemic species, found nowhere else, across various documented plant and animal groups. The typically-lush forests near the town of Mudigere were rather dry in March, prior to the monsoonal rains, but we still spotted macaques, hornbills and peacocks, and we were followed by cacophonous but nonetheless pleasant birdsong everywhere we went. Luckily, we also found some bees, including blue-banded bees (subgenus Zonamegilla), as well as countless carpenter bees (Xylocopa) and leafcutter bees (Megachile) nesting in the wooden supports of several houses. Before departing Mudigere, I made a presentation on the basics of bee nesting biology at the University of Agricultural and Horticultural Sciences, including advice on how to improve crop yields by providing habitats for bees.

On our return to the National Centre for Biological Sciences in Bangalore, I gave another talk on bee nesting biology, this time to a diverse group of bee researchers from across the Asian region. This subject is especially important because developing better management practices may enable us to increase crop yields while actually decreasing corresponding environmental footprints. Although floral resource choice is well-studied, little is known about how nesting resources impact bee populations or how this translates to crop yields, or about the survival of native plants species requiring pollination. Like researchers in China, Indian scientists seek innovative new ways to increase food supplies for their large population. Ecological intensification, the active balancing of natural and agricultural activities for the benefit of both, may prove an especially powerful tool in Asia, where many habitats remain less disturbed than in Europe.

My trip to Kolkata was just as promising at the outset and rewarding in its completion. There in Kolkata, we attended a conference at the University of Calcutta hosted by Dr. Parthiba Basu and the Zoological Survey of India’s K. Rajmohana and colleagues. The several days of this workshop consisted of various talks from a broad regional audience and I presented on our work on global bee distribution published in Current Biology, which was very well received. The conference was followed by a taxonomy workshop at the Zoological Survey of India that was very well attended and rewarding for all that participated.

Since this meeting, the IUCN Wild Bee Specialist Group has formed and both Dr. Zhu Chaodong and myself are involved with the leadership of the Asian Section, alongside Dr. Parthiba Basu and others who have been involved with these efforts. As part of this work, we are now preparing to submit a perspectives piece to Biological Conservation about the unique challenges and opportunities faced in bee research in Asia. We think this will galvanize future regional research efforts. I’m exceptionally thankful to the organizers of these two meetings. As this group grows, we hope to make it more international, including eventually hosting a meeting in Beijing, now that international travel has become much easier. Such meetings hold great promise for building a regional and global shared knowledge of bees, to the betterment of research for all involved.

Source: Michael Orr,

Institute of Zoology,

Chinese Academy of Sciences