Public evening lecture by Professor Dr. Manfred Ayasse (University of Ulm)

Wild bees are indispensable for stable plant production and form the basis for a varied and healthy diet. The ecosystem service provided by pollinators corresponds to a global annual market value of 200 to over 500 billion euros. Intensive agricultural management with pesticide use and fertilization as well as pathogens and climate change threaten the number, diversity and health of pollinators and thus their pollination service. In this lecture, various projects will be presented that show how land use intensification and stressors such as pesticides and food shortages affect the health and pollination performance of pollinators and what measures can be taken to support wild bees.

Manfred Ayasse studied biology and completed his doctorate at the University of Tübingen on the chemical communication of forager bees. After postdoctoral positions in Öland, Sweden, and the Department of Evolutionary Biology at the University of Vienna, Austria, he has headed the Chemical Ecology working group at the Institute of Evolutionary Ecology and Conservation Genomics at the University of Ulm since 2002. In his projects, he investigates the evolutionary ecology, social behavior and chemical ecology of insects as well as interactions between pollinators and flowering plants.

Moderation: Professor Dr. Gabriele Uhl