{"id":23434,"date":"2023-01-11T10:14:00","date_gmt":"2023-01-11T09:14:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcwildlife\/?post_type=purple_issue&p=23434"},"modified":"2023-01-12T10:21:30","modified_gmt":"2023-01-12T09:21:30","slug":"meet-the-scientist-christoph-grueter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcwildlife\/2023\/01\/11\/meet-the-scientist-christoph-grueter\/","title":{"rendered":"Meet the scientist: Christoph Grueter"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
MEET THE SCIENTIST <\/strong><\/h5>\n\n

Christoph Grueter<\/h2>\n\n

Senior lecturer at the University of Bristol\u2019s school of biological sciences on foraging bees <\/p>\n\n

\"\"
Covid-19 lockdowns forced Christoph and his team to resort to \u2018virtual\u2019 bees <\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n

CHRISTOPH GRUETER is particularly interested in social insects. He studied zoology at the University of Bern, Switzerland and did his PhD at the University of Buenos Aires, Argentina, and the University of Bern. <\/p>\n\n

\u201cLiving in a society has its own challenges and I am fascinated by the many different ways that social insects have found to address these challenges \u2013 this includes communication, division of labour or collective defence,\u201d says Christoph. \u201cUnderstanding their behaviour is often necessary to understand the roles that ants or bees play in their and our world as pollinators of plants or predators of arthropods, for example.\u201d His latest study, conducted with master\u2019s student Lucy Hayes, found that social bees have much larger foraging ranges than solitary bees, which is not down to one factor, but a combination of factors that are the result of social life. <\/p>\n\n

\u201cLiving in a colony means that you potentially compete over food with your sisters. One solution to this is to forage at greater distances from your nest,\u201d he explains. \u201cThe ability to communicate about food sources and specialising on particular flower species also lead to larger foraging distances.\u201d During lockdown, they used computer simulations with \u2018virtual\u2019 bees and combined this with data from published literature. For the next stage of their research, the pair plan to study bees in their natural environment.<\/span><\/p>\n\n

\"\"
Christoph trying to catch Trigona bees in Brazil <\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n

\u201cThere are different ways to measure the foraging distance of a bee but the most common method is to catch bees near their nest, mark them (for example with a colour dot) and then release them at different distances from their nest,\u201d says Christoph. If bees can return to their nest without much delay, we have good reason assume that the release point was familiar to the bee and, thus, within their foraging territory.\u201d <\/p>\n\n

\u201cOur findings so far suggest that foraging success in social bees is less affected by habitat fragmentation as they can cover larger distances to find food. Solitary bees, however, are likely to struggle more in fragmented landscapes. Plant species that depend on pollinators also face habitat fragmentation. Social bees, such as honeybees or bumblebees, might come to the rescue in these situations because they will find isolated plant populations more easily.\u201d <\/p>\n\n

Jo Price <\/strong><\/p>\n\n

PHOTOS: CHRISTOPH: CHRISTOPH GRUETER; BEE SUIT: FRANCISCA SEGERS<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Senior lecturer at the University of Bristol\u2019s school of biological sciences on foraging bees <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":23995,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ub_ctt_via":"","purple_page_number":"21","purple_custom_meta_purple_page_number":"21","purple_seq_number":"3","purple_custom_meta_purple_seq_number":"3","purple_source_article":"article_21-3.xml","purple_custom_meta_purple_source_article":"article_21-3.xml","purple_source_issue":"February-2023","purple_custom_meta_purple_source_issue":"February-2023","purple_external_id":"February-2023-21-3","purple_custom_meta_purple_external_id":"February-2023-21-3","purple_issue_code":"|0000087240||","purple_custom_meta_purple_issue_code":"|0000087240||","purple_android_product":"com.im.wildlife.500","purple_custom_meta_purple_android_product":"com.im.wildlife.500","purple_ios_product":"com.im.wildlife.500","purple_custom_meta_purple_ios_product":"com.im.wildlife.500","purple_web_product":"","purple_custom_meta_purple_web_product":"","purple_publication_id":"58d61955-0ac4-406c-83f1-ab6f21d86b70","purple_migrated":"","kt_blocks_editor_width":"","apple_news_api_created_at":"2023-01-12T09:16:39Z","apple_news_article-theme":"","apple_news_api_id":"f5ec3901-4f49-456d-a564-7557127bf774","apple_news_api_modified_at":"2023-01-12T09:21:38Z","apple_news_api_revision":"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA==","apple_news_api_share_url":"https:\/\/apple.news\/A9ew5AU9JRW2lZHVXEnv3dA","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_is_hidden":false,"apple_news_is_paid":true,"apple_news_is_preview":true,"apple_news_is_sponsored":false,"apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_article_theme":"","apple_news_sections":"[]"},"categories":[25],"tags":[14],"apple_news_notices":[],"featured_image_src":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/44\/2023\/01\/Me6_cmyk_preview.jpg","author_info":{"display_name":"importmanagerhub@sprylab.com","author_link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcwildlife\/author\/importmanagerhubsprylab-com\/"},"acf":{"readingTimeMinutes":"3","apple_news_title":""},"uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/44\/2023\/01\/Me6_cmyk_preview.jpg",2380,2112,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/44\/2023\/01\/Me6_cmyk_preview-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/44\/2023\/01\/Me6_cmyk_preview-300x266.jpg",300,266,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/44\/2023\/01\/Me6_cmyk_preview-768x682.jpg",768,682,true],"large":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/44\/2023\/01\/Me6_cmyk_preview-1024x909.jpg",800,710,true],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/44\/2023\/01\/Me6_cmyk_preview-1536x1363.jpg",1536,1363,true],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/44\/2023\/01\/Me6_cmyk_preview-2048x1817.jpg",2048,1817,true]},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"importmanagerhub@sprylab.com","author_link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcwildlife\/author\/importmanagerhubsprylab-com\/"},"uagb_comment_info":0,"uagb_excerpt":"Senior lecturer at the University of Bristol\u2019s school of biological sciences on foraging bees","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcwildlife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23434"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcwildlife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcwildlife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcwildlife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/24"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcwildlife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23434"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcwildlife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23434\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24122,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcwildlife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23434\/revisions\/24122"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcwildlife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23995"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcwildlife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23434"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcwildlife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23434"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcwildlife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23434"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}