By Moya Owens.
Research Assistant | ANTENNA Project| Department of Botany
All at Trinity celebrating World Bee Day.
To celebrate World Bee Day 2026, we organised a Pollinator Workshop focusing on the monitoring efforts that are being carried out by researchers at Trinity and the National Biodiversity Centre. Professor. Jane Stout introduced the workshop, emphasising the importance of monitoring pollinators and the collection of data in order to have up to date trends on insect populations. This set the scene for a morning of flash presentations from researchers involved in pollinator monitoring which then led to some interesting discussion surrounding challenges, monitoring gaps and opportunities within monitoring schemes.
The Days Agenda
” Insects like warm, sunny weather conditions so choosing when to survey is crucial in order to detect insect activity “
Researchers presenting their projects. L-R: Dr. Sarah Larragy, Dr. Kate Harrington, PhD student Hazel Cravan, Research Masters student Ailis Wynne, MSc student Katie Gahan, Dr. Maryam Morouzi, Dr. Michelle Larkin, Research Assistant Moya Owens
Challenges
One of the main challenges with insect monitoring is surrounding variability – there are so many things to consider before even getting into the field to monitor! Insects are incredibly variable year to year and can be sensitive to environmental stressors which results in population fluctuations. Pesticides, habitat loss and climate change all impact our insect species and negatively impact populations. Additionally, the weather plays a huge role in insect activity and detection. Insects like warm, sunny weather conditions so choosing when to survey is crucial in order to detect insect activity (spoiler alert – Ireland is not the best at giving us sunny, dry weather). There are also gaps within monitoring schemes – monitoring methods don’t capture the whole picture, which is why projects like Wing Sense and ANTENNA can help fill these gaps.
The Future
Novel technologies can capture richness over a wider spatial and temporal scale, improving our data and giving us a better understanding of population trends. We also discussed the new Eu Pollinator Monitoring Scheme (EU-PoMS) which is being rolled out from 2027. Under the Nature Restoration Legislation, all EU member states are required to reverse the decline in pollinators by 2030 – an ambitious task, but a good starting point that will hopefully:
1. Increase awareness surrounding the decline of pollinators and
2. Lead to the implementation of effective measures that will improve pollinator diversity across Europe.
Enjoying learning about bees!
After the presentations and discussions, we took advantage of the dry weather and went on a bee hunt on campus. We found lots of insects flying about – honeybees (Apis mellifera), mining bees (Andrena spp.), white-tailed bees (Bombus lucorum agg.) and early bumblebees (Bombus pratorum). It was a great day celebrating all things bee – until next year!
L: Red mason bee (Osmia bicornis) and R: Jane showing off a male early bumblebee (Bombus pratorum)