Anke Dietzsch
@ankedietzsch.bsky.social
1.3K followers 730 following 66 posts
Bees, plants and dance - I'm a researcher at the Institute for Bee Protection, Julius Kühn Institute in Brunswick, Germany; agroecology | ecotoxicology | wild bee diversity | plant-pollinator interactions | pollinator monitoring 🇩🇪🇨🇮🇺🇲 views are my own #JKI
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Reposted by Anke Dietzsch
nabu.de
NABU @nabu.de · Sep 2
🥁 Wer wird Vogel des Jahres 2026? Das digitale Wahllokal hat ab sofort für euch geöffnet und jetzt kommt es auf deine Stimme an. 💌 Waldohreule, Schleiereule, Amsel, Zwergtaucher oder Rebhuhn – Wer wird dieses Jahr an die Spitze flattern? 👉 Jetzt abstimmen auf www.vogeldesjahres.de
Reposted by Anke Dietzsch
joshlukedavis.com
woah this is genuinely, utterly WILD

Ant queens of one species produce males of another species, so she can then mate with them and produce hybrid workers!

This is so gloriously weird I can't quite compute it 🤯🧪🐜
www.nature.com/articles/d41...
‘Almost unimaginable’: these ants are different species but share a mother
Ant queens of one species clone ants of another to create hybrid workers that do their bidding.
www.nature.com
ankedietzsch.bsky.social
Pike & Rittschof pointing out that "only ∼13% of resource competition studies evaluated fitness effects of A. mellifera on wild bees" and call it a research gap. Not surprising! It's a real challenge to look at fitness, particularly for rare species, which might be the most vulnerable.
ankedietzsch.bsky.social
This is hot!!
doi.org/10.1016/j.uc...
One of the puzzle pieces to predict future urban bee community composition...
kit.edu
Hitzebelastung in Städten metergenau sichtbar gemacht: Forschende von #KITKarlsruhe und @uni-freiburg.de haben mithilfe von #KI hochauflösend und über lange Zeiträume berechnet, wie sich die #Hitzebelastung in einem Stadtgebiet künftig pro Quadratmeter entwickelt. www.kit.edu/kit/pi_2025_...
Grafische Darstellung der heutigen Hitzeverteilung (linke Bildhälfte) und der Zunahme zum Ende des Jahrhunderts am Beispiel der Stadt Freiburg
Reposted by Anke Dietzsch
beeresearchpapers.bsky.social
Honey bee (Apis mellifera L.) and wild bee resource competition: how big is this problem?

Spoiler: not a very big problem.

Pike & Rittschof 2025

doi.org/10.1093/icb/...

#apidologie #beeresearch #beescience #science #biology #environment #beekeeping #bees
Honey bee (Apis mellifera L.) and wild bee resource competition: how big is this problem?
Abstract. The Western honey bee (Apis mellifera L.) has been managed by humans for centuries for honey, wax, and most recently, crop pollination. The deep
doi.org
ankedietzsch.bsky.social
Interesting study by the @isaacslab.bsky.social showing the need for drift-reducing agricultural application techniques in order to mitigate risks for pollinators academic.oup.com/ee/article/5...
entsocamerica.bsky.social
Wildflower plantings near crop fields are a common tool for attracting pollinators, but a new study shows pesticide applications to crops are likely to drift as far as 100 feet into these wildflower zones, potentially harming the very pollinators they're meant to attract.
Study Finds High Pesticide Drift Into Wildflower Buffer Zones Near Crop Fields
Wildflower plantings near crops are a common tool for attracting pollinators, but pesticide drift can harm the very pollinators they're meant to attract.
entomologytoday.org
ankedietzsch.bsky.social
Great to read this synthesis on how effective promotion measurements for urban pollinators really are! They work! Sadly, there is no data on perennial plantings yet - watch this space.
ankedietzsch.bsky.social
I'd like to see our opinion paper to be a starting point for a wider discussion before monitoring methodology is written in stone.
jki-research.bsky.social
The revised EU Pollinator Monitoring Scheme #EUPoMS suggests standardised methods, but lacks strong evidence for key choices. The authors from JKI urge clarification on excluding pan traps to maintain scientific integrity and public trust in the scheme.
doi.org/10.26786/192...
tinyurl.com/3rt2ewce
Pan traps are especially useful for sampling bees simultaneously across replicated sites. 
Photo by Johannes Kaufmann/JKI Variation in floral density may bias pan trap results, but evidence for this bias presented in the revised EUPoMS is not robust.
Photo: Institute for Bee Protection/JKI
Reposted by Anke Dietzsch
jki-research.bsky.social
Researchers at our Institute for #Bee Protection are currently collecting data on the occurrence of honeybees and wild bees in agricultural landscapes. Systematic data collection over several years will provide a robust reference for future interval monitoring. #WorldBeeDay
www.julius-kuehn.de/en/bs
Some of the survey sites are located in intensively managed agricultural areas. Just in these locations, the field margins show an unexpectedly diverse flora during the course of the year (note the difference between end of March and beginning of May 2025). At this site, located in the Salzland district of Saxony-Anhalt, the halictid bee (Lasioglossum xanthopus) visits flowers of field bugloss (Lycopsis arvensis), among others.
Photo: Dr Severin Polreich/JKI Researchers at the JKI Institute for Bee Protection collect pan-trap samples. The spectrum of bee species and other flower-visiting insects is determined using DNA metabarcoding later on. 
Photo: Dr Severin Polreich/JKI Hedges are important landscape elements, providing not only food but also nesting opportunities and sun-exposed surface for warming up and resting (here on field maple, Acer campestre), which may also have a positive effect on the pollination activity of bees in the cooler spring.  
Photo: Dr Severin Polreich/JKI
ankedietzsch.bsky.social
Great to have you here @jki-research.bsky.social
jki-research.bsky.social
👋🥳 The #JKI team, with more than 1,300 staff members, says “Hi” to the #PlantScience community here! We are looking forward to presenting the #research from our 18 specialised institutes across 9 sites in Germany.
🔬 Discover more: www.julius-kuehn.de/en/structure
🎥 youtu.be/ne4yfS3vYNs
@bmel.de
Reposted by Anke Dietzsch
willleohawkes.bsky.social
Ok, so I know all bees are incredible creatures, and it's a brave human who ranks them. But surely this blue carpenter bee would be near the top?
This is Xylocopa tumida and she is gorgeous. 1/3
Reposted by Anke Dietzsch
jpollecol.bsky.social
2025 starts with a methodology publication by Ștefan et al. on Utilising affordable smartphones and open-source time-lapse photography for pollinator image collection and annotation - Happy new year!
doi.org/10.26786/192...
Reposted by Anke Dietzsch
bsggoettingen.bsky.social
Kürzlich ist ein Wildbienen-Artikel erschienen 🐝🐝

Autor*innen: Thomas Fechtler, Hanna Gardein (Julius-Kühn-Institut), Felix Kirsch @thuenen.de, Friederike Grau & Annika Haß @funcagroeco.bsky.social @unigoettingen.bsky.social & Fionn Pape.

▶️ www.researchgate.net/publication/...
Cover Artenfocus Titel Wildbienen-Artikel
Reposted by Anke Dietzsch
molly.wiki
The world's richest man has joined a growing chorus of right-wing voices attacking Wikipedia as part of an intensifying campaign against free and open access information. Why do they hate it so much?
Elon Musk and the right’s war on Wikipedia
The world's richest man has joined a growing chorus of right-wing voices attacking Wikipedia as part of an intensifying campaign against free and open access information.
www.citationneeded.news
Reposted by Anke Dietzsch
Reposted by Anke Dietzsch
nicrodemo.bsky.social
A biting buzz: Thanks to Sigma Xi and New Scientist for covering our work on how #bees bite flowers to transmit vibrations to flowers during buzz pollination! www.americanscientist.org/article/a-bi...
A Biting Buzz
Bees transfer vibrations better and increase pollen rewards when they grasp flowers with their mandibles.
www.americanscientist.org
Reposted by Anke Dietzsch
catrinwestphal.bsky.social
New study: #CropDiversification can help pollinators without taking land out of agricultural production, but only some #pollinator species may benefit. We highlight mechanisms on the spatial
and temporal #diversity of crops. Led by Thijs Fijen @w-u-r.bsky.social
Crop diversification for pollinator conservation - Landscape Ecology
Context Intensive agriculture drives insect decline impacting insect-mediated ecosystem services that support production. Crop diversification shows promise in increasing crop productivity and enhanci...
link.springer.com
Reposted by Anke Dietzsch
cmhmaliani.bsky.social
An inspirational study that everyone interested in the thermal ecology of bees and their responses to environmental warming should read. I'll most likely borrow some of the elegant methods used here, and put them to work with some wild bees next summer 😉

doi.org/10.1242/jeb....
Bees remain heat tolerant after acute exposure to desiccation and starvation
Summary: Sublethal desiccation exposure and short-term starvation do not significantly affect heat tolerance in honey bees and sweat bees.
doi.org