Funding period: 2019-2024
Lead: Stephen Pernal
Total GRDI funding: $2,198,365
Honey bees are crucial to Canada's agriculture. They contribute up to $5.5 billion/year to our economy by pollinating valuable Canadian crops, such as blueberries, apples, and hybrid canola seed and by producing over 41,000 metric tonnes of honey. However, the health of honey bees has been declining over the past decade, with Canadian beekeepers losing more than a quarter of their colonies each winter since 2006-07. The causes of bee declines are complex, variable over space and time, and often difficult to identify. Beekeepers and government regulators lack the appropriate tools to quickly diagnose and differentiate among the multiple stressors impacting colonies, which has hindered their ability to manage and improve bee health. Our team of researchers will improve the health of Canadian honey bees by developing BeeCSI - a new health assessment and diagnosis platform powered by stressor-specific microbiome and gene expression markers. We will work with a large number of beekeepers, industry technology-transfer teams, and diagnostic labs, and will consult with federal and provincial regulatory entities to ensure that our tools are implemented and accessible to the beekeeping industry by the end of the project. By providing an objective means to diagnose bee health, our tools will reduce the uncertainty on the factors affecting bee health or colony losses. They will help ensure the growth and sustainability of the beekeeping industry which supports a multi-billion-dollar sector of Canada's agroeconomy.
Publications
- Bixby MEF, Polinsky M, Scarlett R, Higo H, Common J, Hoover SE, Foster LJ, Zayed A, Cunningham M, Guarna MM. 2021.) Impacts of COVID-19 on Canadian Beekeeping: Survey Results and a Profitability Analysis. Journal of Economic Entomology:toab180. https://doi.org/10.1093/jee/toab180
- Borba R, Hoover SE, Currie RW, Giovenazzo P, Guarna MM, Foster LJ, Zayed A, Pernal SF. 2022. Phenomic analysis of the honey bee pathogen-web and its dynamics on colony productivity, health and social immunity behaviors. PLoS ONE 17(1): e0263273. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0263273
- French SK, Pepinelli M, Conflitti IM, Jamieson A, Higo H, Common J, Walsh EM, Bixby M, Guarna MM, Pernal SF, Hoover SE, Currie RW, Giovenazzo P, Guzman-Novoa E, Borges D, Foster LJ, Zayed A. 2024. Honey bee stressor networks are complex and dependent on crop and region. Current Biology 34(9):1893–1903.e3. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2024.03.039
- Richardson RT, Conflitti IM, Labuschagne RS, Hoover SE, Currie RW, Giovenazzo P, Guarna MM, Pernal SF, Foster LJ, Zayed A. 2023. Land use changes associated with declining honey bee health across temperate North America. Environmental Research Letters 18 064042. https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/acd867
- Xiaoji Liu X, Floate KD, Gorzelak M, Hrycauk S, Holman D, Kubota H, Lupwayi N, Neilson J, Ortega Polo R, Petri RM, Tran L, Wang H, Wilches Correal D, Yang X, Guarna MM. 2023. Prairie Agri-Ecosystems: Interconnected Microbiomes of Livestock, Soil and Insects. Agriculture 2023, 13(2), 326. https://doi.org/10.3390/agriculture13020326
Contact us
For additional information, please contact:
Genomics R&D Initiative
Email: info@grdi-irdg.collaboration.gc.ca