Searching for spatial correlation between agricultural practices and honeybee dynamics
Abstract
The farming systems strongly intensified over the past 50 years, which led to a homogenization of agrosystems, now accounting for a high proportion of total land cover (e.g. 46% in France and 61% in the Poitou-Charentes French region). Mechanization of agricultural practices and increasing of inputs i.e. agrochemicals, resulted in losses in biodiversity in agricultural lands. While rapeseed and sunflower have favoured the development of beekeeping in cereal medium by providing almost 70% of the total production of honey, beekeepers tend to desert these intensive cereal territories in favour of more diversified areas, richer in ressources. In parallel, beekeeping sustainability in farming landscapes is currently threatened, and beekeepers changed theirs activities by more intensive practices in order to compensate for colony losses and decreasing honey yields. Consequently, honeybees faced hazard gradient depending to the location of apiary. In this context, the choice of hive locations for honey production and honeybee conservation in intensive agrosystems remains a central issue. In the suite of this study, we will answer three important questions : - What are the influences of agricultural pressures on the dynamics of honeybees? - Is there a spatial structure in the dynamics of the honeybees? - Spatial structures of both agricultural practices and dynamic of honeybees are they correlated?