Exploring wild bee communities from the Mediterranean unsing an insect collection
- Beschreibung
The National Park of the Gargano is a particularly rich landscape in terms of flora and has one of the highest concentrations of wild orchid species in Europe. Yet the bee community supporting these plants through pollination has been poorly studied. In fact, the Mediterranean harbours the highest diversity of bees in Europe because of its warm and dry climate conditions. Only in Italy mainland, about 950 species of bees are found. However, the taxonomy of wild bees is still ongoing.
This project offers the opportunity to work with a bee collection from the South of Italy and get familiar with bee taxonomy and pollination ecology. Several research questions can be answered with this data: how does the species composition change along the season, how does the sex ratio of specific species change along the season, what are the nectar preferences of a certain species… The research objectives will be defined at the start of the Humboldt project based on the students’ interests.
- Projektzeitraum
- Wintersemester 2026/2027
- Bewerbungszeitraum
- 12. bis 26.10.2026
- Durchführung
- semesterbegleitend
- Details zu Projektzeitraum und Durchführung
The activities will involve pinning, sorting and identifying bees. After that, the dataset created will be analyzed using statistical methods in R to answer the project questions. Finally, the results of the project will be summarized in a poster.
- Studienfach
- offen für alle Studienfächer
- Betreuende
- Maria Pamies Harder
- Institut
- Institut für Biologie (190) (Plant Evolutionary Biology 190b)
- Sprache
- englisch
- Teilnehmendenanzahl
- min. 1, max. 2
- Arbeitsaufwand
-
ca. 180 Stunden pro Teilnehmende:r
| 6
ECTS-Punkte
Arbeitsaufwand (Stunden und ggf. ECTS) sind ungefähre Angaben. Die tatsächlich vergebenen ECTS-Punkte ergeben sich aus der tatsächlich geleisteten Arbeit.
- Für dieses Projekt ist kein Motivationsschreiben des Studierenden erforderlich
- Projektart
- experimentell
- Lernziele
-
Die Teilnehmende lernen in diesem Projekt:
- Prepare and identify bee specimens at genus level
- Manage and organize an insect collection
- Analyse plant-pollinator networks
- Desing a scientific poster to communicate the findings
- Anmerkungen für Studierende
No specific previous knowledge is required. Curiosity, willingness to learn, and a tidy and well-organized working style are essential.