Working with

The key aim of my research is the development of strategies that implement pollination and bees as keystone pollinators as tools to increase the sustainability and resilience of crop production systems now and under climate change. Therefore, I am aiming to use pollination as an ecosystem function for crop production provided by different social and solitary bee species, their interactions and (functional) biodiversity. Around this, I established my focus on a network of stressors, that potentially affect bee fitness and thereby pollination and crop production solely and in interaction. I specialized into the various aspects of three major stressors, pesticides, resource availability (determined by land-use change) and different aspects of climate change. The obtained knowledge I am using to develop strategies and tools to preserve as well as (re)integrate bees and pollination into agricultural landscapes and production systems as a tool for the ecological intensification of crop production.