Matthew D Smart

Using colony monitoring devices to evaluate the impacts of land use and forage quality on honey bee health datasets

Honey bee colonies located in 2 apiaries in North Dakota were fitted with two types of monitoring device: pollen traps and scales. Data were collected from devices periodically throughout the 2014 season (May-October). Data derived from pollen traps included: the total fresh weight of pollen collected, the percent crude protein content, the percent content of each amino acid, and DNA identification of floral plant sources. Scales collected colony weight through time.

Tags: Great Plains, Great Plains region, Midwest, North Dakota, agriculture, All tags... bee pollen, beekeeping, bees, biofuel crops, biota, ecosystem services, environment, grasslands, habitats, honey, honey bees, land use, pollinators, Fewer tags

Colony Collapse Disorder has resulted in widespread loss of US honey bee colonies and heightened societal concern over honey bee health and reduced pollination services for agricultural crops. The Farm Service Agency has expressed substantial interest in promoting habitat for honey bee colonies residing on Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) lands throughout the Great Plains. Our team is conducting a multi-state study to identify specific plants that can be readily implemented into the CRP for improving pollinator health in North Dakota. This study will provide managers with a means to evaluate cost-effective seeding mixes to benefit pollinators for multiple conservation programs. This project was started in 2015...

Categories: Project

A comparison of honey bee-collected pollen from working agricultural lands using light microscopy and ITS metabarcoding datasets

Here we compare pollen identification results derived from light microscopy and DNA sequencing techniques of a robust number of samples collected from honey bee colonies embedded within intensive agricultural landscapes in the Northern Great Plains. We collected pollen samples from colonies within 6 apiaries in 2010 and 2011. For each pollen sample, we identified pollen grains via light microscopy and provide the number of grain counts-per-million. A separate aliquot of each pollen sample subjected to light microscope identification was also used for DNA sequencing analysis. We provide the plant operational taxonomic unit (OTU) for all base pair reads as the number of reads-per-million.

Categories: Data; Types: Citation; Tags: Apis mellifera, Bees, DNA, DNA, DNA sequencing, All tags... Gene banks (genetics), Microscopy, North Dakota, Pollen, biota, forage, genetics, honey bee, land cover, land use, light microscopy, microscopy, plant species, pollen, Fewer tags