Planet’s oldest bee species and primary pollinators were under threat from deforestation and competition from ‘killer bees’

Planet’s oldest bee species and primary pollinators were under threat from deforestation and competition from ‘killer bees’

De Europese Commissie zwakt regels voor de beoordeling van pesticiden af. De maatregel moet bureaucratie voor bedrijven verminderen, maar wetenschappers vrezen voor de veiligheid van mens en milieu.

npj Climate and Atmospheric Science - Aqueous photochemistry of neonicotinoids unveils a major source of atmospheric reactive nitrogen impacting global climate

npj Climate and Atmospheric Science - Aqueous photochemistry of neonicotinoids unveils a major source of atmospheric reactive nitrogen impacting global climate

Harmonized land-use and land-cover datasets that include past and future periods are key to solving sustainability issues, such as climate change and biodiversity loss. However, existing harmonized pr...

Volgens de rechtbank van Brussel heeft Vlaanderen bepaalde Europese verplichtingen over gewasbeschermingsmiddelen niet volledig omgezet in de eigen wetgeving. Bij een cor

Due to the global decline of pollinators, global food security is at risk. Crops essentially dependent on pollinators such as pumpkin (Cucurbita moschata Duchesne, Cucurbitaceae) are the most affected. Although the importance of pollinators for crop productivity is known, there are many gaps in knowledge regarding the influence of pollination on crop quality, especially on the chemical composition of fruits and seeds. Here, we evaluated the relationship between floral display, frequency of visits and crop production, using three pumpkin plantations in the semi-arid region of NE Brazil as a model. In all sites we recorded floral display, floral visitors, and compared fruit set, fruit quality and seed number between natural (NP) and cross (CP) pollination experiments. Bees were the main pollinators, and Apis mellifera and Trigona spinipes were the most frequent. Floral display was positively correlated with the total number of visits, which had a positive relation with fruit weight, specifically because of T. spinipes visits. Visitation by A. mellifera had a negative relationship with pericarp length. Fruit set was about 9% higher in NP than in CP, whose fruits had lower antioxidant activity than the former. Floral display was positively related to the frequency of visits of pumpkin produced in the semi-arid region of northeastern Brazil. Bees were the main pollinators, especially T. spinipes and A. mellifera, which positively influenced fruit weight. Thus, pollinators favored fruit set, weight, and quality, in addition to promoting antioxidant potential.

By Gabriele Bammer. This is the tenth annual “state of the blog” review. What are the major achievements of i2Insights for 2025? What have been the main themes of the contributions made? How do the…

The pesticide lobby is opportunistically planning to use farmers’ protests, in order to create political momentum to slash EU safety rules for its products. But the free trade deal EU-Mercosur that is the focus of the farmers' ire, shows their interests and the lobbyists do not align.

Nine things every decision maker should know about resilience

The concept of regulatory capture has been extensively studied in academic literature, primarily within the social sciences. This phenomenon has been increasingly discussed in the environmental scienc...

This paper explores the roles of technological innovations in EU sustainability policy and governance discourse. We argue that innovations should be understood as both material and imagined. As mat...

Biodiversity decline jeopardizes the foundation of natural ecosystems and human well-being, a concern that prompted major global agreements aiming to bend the curve towards a net positive biodiversity...

SVT's 2025 symposium explores how the concept of security permeates our cultural imagination and institutional responses.