What's New

What's New?

Upcoming Events:

1. International Pollination Course in Brazil - NSERC-CANPOLIN is pleased to have received funds to support the participation of network members in this year's course. If you are interested in attending and would like to apply for travel support, more details are available here.

News from CANPOLIN:

Mystery of bumblebee declines continues

Disease spread from commercial greenhouses,
pesticides, and habitat loss are not as important in recent bumblebee declines as previously suspected, according to a new study by CANPOLIN researchers in the journal Conservation Letters.

Read the full press release here.

Bees in the Neighbourhood

WG5 Research Associate Tom Woodcock was featured on the CBC radio program Ontario Today, where he advised gardeners how to deal with ground nesting bees.

To listen to the interview, click here

CANPOLIN to Host Workshop on Pollination and Land Restoration

With support from NSERC's Strategic Network Enhancement Initiative, CANPOLIN is pleased to announce it will be hosting a workshop on Pollination and Land Restoration in Columbus, Ohio on September 29 & 30. The workshop will bring together pollination biologists, restoration ecologists, and others interested in land rehabilitation, and will provide a valuable opportunity to assess the current state of knowledge and identify research priorities and collaborative projects. The workshop will take place immediately prior to the 2012 EcoSummit. For more information or to reserve a place in the workshop, please contact sbates@uoguelph.ca.

WG7 Launches New Monitoring Tool for Pollinators

eButterfly is a new online interactive Lepidoptera database that invites contributions from butterfly enthusiasts across the country. The data will help researchers understand and mitigate impacts of global change on Canadian butterfly diversity, and help conservation biologists decide where conservation efforts should be focused.

Read the full press release here or connect straight to eButterfly.ca

CANPOLIN’s Pollinator ID Course held at the Canadian National Collection in Ottawa wraps up!

This year’s course was highly successful, with 19 students from various institutions attending five days of bee and five days of syrphid identification. We received very positive feedback on this year’s course and our thanks goes out to everyone for their participation. Tremendous gratitude as well to instructors Chris Thompson and Jeff Skevington (Syrphids), Corey Sheffield and Jason Gibbs (Bees), and TA’s Andrew Young and Michelle Locke, whose expertise was invaluable in making this year’s course a worthwhile experience. 2012 Course Participants

In the News: WG4 Researcher David Greene discusses the impacts of a warming climate on pollen allergies

CANPOLIN researcher David Greene

Read the full article in the Montreal Gazette

CANPOLIN researcher helps solve mimicry mystery in the Syrphidae

Many species of flower flies resemble, to varying degrees, wasps and bees. This mimicry helps avoid predation by birds, but biologists have often wondered how species with only a passing likeness have persisted, when conventional wisdom suggests they should be selected against. WG1 researcher Jeff Skevington and colleages at Carleton University have determined that the most likely explanation is related to body size - there is less selection for "mimetic fidelity" in smaller hoverfly species because they are less profitable as prey. The findings have been published in Nature. Read the BBC write up here.

Pollinating Bees Can Now Suppress Crop Pests

Read about new developments in pollinator biovectoring in field and greenhouse crops in a recent article in The Grower.

CANPOLIN researcher Elizabeth Elle discusses British Columbia's native bees and their importance to BC agriculture in "Profitable Pollinators"

New Audio Bee Booth Installed at Greenway Blooming Centre

With financial support from TD Friends of the Environment, NSERC-CANPOLIN is pleased to have facilitated the installation of an “Audio Bee Booth” at Greenway Blooming Centre, a CANPOLIN partner. The Audio Bee Booth is an amplified nesting cabinet which provides habitat for wild solitary native bees (which are not social insects such as honey bees or bumble bees) while providing an accessible window to the public to enhance our understanding and appreciation of our local pollination ecology. Aesthetically compelling, immersive and informative, the Audio Bee Booth melds habitat interpretation, bio-art, sound-installation and sculpture, providing a unique public outreach and education tool.

For more information about the Audio Bee Booth, please visit the Resonating Bodies website by installation artist Sarah Peebles. (Photo by Rob Cruikshank; Woodburnings by Chris Bennett)

CANPOLIN Hosts Joint Canadian-Latin America Crop
Pollination Workshop

Researchers from NSERC-CANPOLIN met with their Latin-American counterparts at a workshop held in Cholula, Mexico, on June 30. The workshop, held in conjunction with the X International Symposium of Pollination, was designed to bring together pollination experts to assess the state of knowledge on pollination on crops of mutual interest, and to establish a foundation for future collaborative research. Funding for the workshop was provided by NSERC’s Strategic Network Enhancement Initiative.

Participants at the Crop Pollination Workshop held at the Cholula Ethnobotanical Gardens.

CEC Urged to Consider Importance of Pollinators

Melanie McCavour, an associate of CANPOLIN at Concordia University, was invited to speak to federal environment ministers of Canada, Mexico and the United States about importance of
tri-lateral action to protect pollinators as part of the Commission for Environmental Cooperation's annual Council session. The statement was well received and there is considerable interest in including pollinator protection under the auspices of the CEC.

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