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Project properties |
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| Title | Restoring flowering landscapes to bring back extinct bee species |
| Group | Plant Ecology and Nature Conservation Group |
| Project type | thesis |
| Credits | 36 |
| Supervisor(s) | David Kleijn and Jeroen Scheper |
| Examiner(s) | David Kleijn |
| Contact info | David.Kleijn@wur.nl |
| Begin date | 2019/04/01 |
| End date | 2025/12/03 |
| Description | About half of the 357 wild Dutch bee species are red-listed. Because bees are mobile organisms conservation management needs to target landscapes rather than fields or reserves. In the Geuldal, between Valkenburg and Gulpen, we aim to bring back extinct species by coordinated conservation efforts implemented on land of farmers, municipalities, water boards and nature conservation organizations in an area of approximately 100 km2. This is one of the most species-rich areas in the Netherlands in terms of both plant and bee diversity and we expect that effects of conservation management here are pronounced and rapid. In 2018, baseline data have been collected and conservation management will be implemented starting in 2019. From 2019-2022 we aim to determine the effects on the bee community. Research addresses the effectiveness of the individual conservation measures and the overall success of this unprecedented large-scale initiative. Work entails sampling bees and surveying flowering plants in the period late-April to late-July, identifying bees (help is available) and analysing the data. |
| Used skills | insect sampling, bee and plant identification, statistical analyses |
| Requirements | |