Ecological Intensification: Managing Biocomplexity and Biodiversity in Agriculture Through Pollinators, Pollination and Deploying Biocontrol Agents against Crop and Pollinator Diseases, Pests and Parasites

A Snapshot Picture of the Fungal Composition of Bee Bread in Four Locations in Bulgaria, Differing in Anthropogenic Influence

“…Paraconithyrium species have already been reported for corbicular pollen [9], while they are mostly endophytes and bioremediators [71,72]. They were also declared safe for honeybees as biocontrol agents used for soil treatments in the USA and the EU [73]. Being present within the corbicular pollen indicates that maybe they are also present within the bees' microbiome, and to be transferred to bee bread from the insects' saliva used for the construction of pollen granules.…”

Different bees as vectors for entomovectoring with enhanced pollination and crop protection control: current practices, use cases and critical view on transport

“…Matching the appropriate vector with the plant under protection is thus highly important. The choice for the most suitable vector is dependent on several factors, including the crop species, the Schematic overview of the factors important for successful entomovectoring and their interplay [11,13] crop-visitation rate of the vector, the flying conditions for the vector and the vector's intrinsic capacity to disseminate microbial BCAs [11].…”

“…The bottleneck is in linking the commercial availability of the pollinator with the blooming period of the plant under protection as the pollinator life cycle is not always related to its blooming period [11]. This is also why honeybees and bumblebees, both commercially available throughout the year, are very much in demand for use in the entomovectoring system and have been the vector in many scientific reports investigating entomovectoring [13]. For instance, Apis and Bombus workers differ in pollen deposition and removal because of different foraging behaviour.…”

“…Commercially, honeybees (Apis mellifera) have been used in North America, Europe, South America and Asia [13,18,19]. Bumblebees have been successfully deployed in North America (Bombus impatiens), Europe (Bombus terrestris) and the Republic of Korea (Bombus terrestris) [9,13,18].…”

Rethinking the Connections between Ecosystem Services, Pollinators, Pollution, and Health: Focus on Air Pollution and Its Impacts

“…Narrowing the search under the perspective of biodiversity, sustainability, and health relationship, the following search string returned eight publications: TITLE-ABS-KEY: (“pollinator*” OR “pollination*” AND “ecosystem service*” AND “biodiversity*” AND “sustainability*” AND “health*”. It is worth mentioning the book chapter on ecological intensification as managing biocomplexity and biodiversity in agriculture through pollinators, pollination, and deploying biocontrol agents against crop and pollinator diseases, pests, and parasites [ 36 ]. Another book chapter by [ 37 ] described essential approaches for sustainable and climate-smart land use in agroforestry field, such as the expansion of the species characterizations, the use of underutilized species, the intensification of using beneficial soil organisms for soil and plant health, maximizing resource use efficiency, minimizing pest incidence, and the creation of climate-smart and pest-suppressive landscapes by improving the valuation of environmental services.…”