A full-day virtual event, with invited participants representing a taxonomic community (alpha- and para- taxonomists, ecologists, managers, etc.) that is broader in scope than the ORBIT consortium in order to present the overall ORBIT strategy for the development of the different project’s tasks.
The workshop is a great way to share information on ongoing projects on wild bees across Europe, similar initatives at the national level, understanding of taxonomic impediments in different counties, and to extend the network of collaborators.
Round tables are organized for main themes: Taxonomy, Barcoding, Ecology, Habitat Management, Citizen Science, and Research Monitoring.
Follow up of the Workshop
The Orbit Workshop was held on the 21st of September 2021. It was organised by the University of Mons (UMons), Laboratory of Zoology (Belgium), and it was held online on the Gather.town platform.
Participants
The 69 participants came from 25 countries: Austria, Belgium, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Latvia, Lebanon, Malta, Poland, Portugal, Russia, Serbia, Spain, Switzerland, the Netherlands, UK, and Ukraine.
The Workshop
The workshop included two plenary sessions: one in the morning to present the Orbit project and one in the afternoon to summarise and show the results of the break-out groups and for final questions. Six break-out working group sessions were organised: three in the morning, to better focus on the methodological stages of the project, and three in the afternoon, as round tables on related topics, to know other European initiatives connected to the project and understanding the taxonomic impediment in different countries.
Morning plenary session
- Presentation of the members of the Orbit Consortium
- An introduction on the framework of the Orbit project in the contest of other European initiatives by Simon Potts (University of Reading)
- An introduction to the main tasks and subtasks of the project, in particular: subtask 1.1 and 1.2 by Denis Michez (University of Mons), 1.3 by Adrien Perrard (Sorbonne University); 1.4 by Nicolas Vereecken (University of Bruxelles), 1.5 by Kevin Maebe (University of Gent); 1.6, Task 2, Task 3 by Denis Michez.
- Three break-out working groups in the morning focused on the following topics: (i) Taxonomy, (ii) Barcoding, (iii) Ecology, Photographs and Traits
- Three break-out working groups in the afternoon focused on the following topics: (i) Habitat Management, (ii) Citizen Science, (iii) Monitoring
- A closing session to summarise the main results of the break-out groups
Morning break-out groups
Taxonomy (Chairmen: Christophe Praz (CSCF), Thomas J. Wood (UMONS))
Presentations:
- Christophe Praz (CSCF): opening of the session, presentation of the Orbit factsheets
- Max Kasparek (private). Title of the presentation: Integrated Taxonomy: Revision of West Palearctic Anthidiini
- Thomas J. Wood (UMONS): Current state of European Andrena Taxonomy
- Petr Bogush (University of Hradec Králové): Taxonomy and phylogeny of cuckoo bees
- Juho Paukkunen (University of Helsinki): Digitizing bee collections at the Finnish Museum of Natural History
Barcoding (Chairmen: Kevin Maebe (UGENT), Guillaume Ghisbain (UMONS))
Presentations:
- Kevin Maebe (UGENT) opening of the session
- Juho Paukkunen (University of Helsinki): DNA barcoding Finnish bees
- Paolo Biella (University of Milan): Molecular tools and integrative approaches to investigate Italian bees
- Guillaume Ghisbain (UMONS): DNA barcoding – A simple approach for delineating cryptic species complexes
Ecology/Photographs and Traits (Chairmen: Nicolas Vereecken (ULB), Stuart Roberts (ULB))
Presentation:
Stuart Roberts (ULB) and Nicolas Vereecken (ULB): Collecting and updating the taxonomic knowledge for European wild bees
Afternoon break-out groups
Habitat Management (Chairmen: Denis Michez (UMONS))
Presentations:
- Andrea Holzschuh (UWURZB): The EU Safeguard Project
- Bernhard Jacobi (collaborator of ULB): Conservation of critically endangered bee species in a metropolitan area
- Petr Bogusch (UHK): Conservation of bees and wasps
Citizen Science (Chairmen: Adrien Perrard (USORB), Nicolas Vereecken (ULB))
Presentations:
- Colin Fontaine (France): the citizen science program Spipoll in France
- Peter Mullen (Germany): “BienABEst App”
- Herbert Zettel (Natural History Museum Vienna): Citizen Science at the Natural History Museum Vienna-one step towards a national bee protecting strategy?
Monitoring (Chairmen: Simon Potts (UREAD), Sara Reverté (UMONS))
Presentations:
- Juho Paukkunen (Finland): Bumble bee monitoring in Finland
- Villu Soon (Estonia): Revision of the Estonian bee fauna
- Nacho Bartomeus (Spain): Long-term monitoring project in Sevilla
- Marino Quaranta (CREA, Italy): Monitoring Scheme: Bee Net
ORBIT PROJECT 