The biggest danger to biodiversity is urbanization. However, little is known by scientists about how urbanization impacts ecosystem services and biodiversity in tropical parts of the Global South.
A multinational study team looked into how urbanization affected bee colonies in smallholder farms in and around Bangalore, a metropolis in South India with a population of more than 13 million.
Contrary to findings from temperate locations, they discovered that social bees, such as wild honey bees, suffered more than huge solitary bees or those that nest in holes.
Urban agriculture to bees
The researchers tallied more than 26,000 individual bees from 40 species during a thorough field study of bees on vegetable fields spanning rural and urban habitats.
The scientists were able to determine how the percentage of sealed surfaces and buildings in urban areas influenced bee colonies by combining the data with remote sensing from satellites.
They also compared bees that use various nesting locations and have various social structures and levels of mobility to examine how the various bee species reacted to the settings.
According to first author Gabriel Marcacci, a Ph.D. candidate in the Functional Agrobiodiversity group at the University of Göttingen, "We showed that the way bees reacted to urbanization were precise to certain traits. For example, bees taking up residence in cavities benefitted immensely from urbanization as they can nest in small cracks and cavities on buildings," via ScienceDaily.
Furthermore, they discovered that ground-nesting bees, who are typically seen as the victims of urbanization, have plenty of opportunities to nest in tropical megacities since there is still enough bare ground present, particularly in the less developed neighborhoods.
According to Professor Ingo Grass of the Department of Ecology of Tropical Agricultural Systems at the University of Hohenheim, the findings diverge somewhat from what is typically observed in temperate-zone cities, demonstrating the impossibility of drawing conclusions from field research conducted in Germany or other countries of the Global North.
Another striking outcome of urbanization is the sharp drop in social bee populations.
According to Professor Teja Tscharntke, this conclusion is especially concerning since, in the tropics, social bees like wild honeybees and stingless bees, build big colonies and are crucial for agricultural pollination.
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Urban agriculture
Urban agriculture may be defined as the practice of raising animals and cultivating plants primarily for human consumption and other domestic purposes inside urban areas, as per Conserve Energy Future.
It also includes tasks including the manufacture, handling, marketing, and delivery of agricultural goods.
There are several production systems that make up urban agriculture.
They range from small-scale agricultural to large-scale domestic production and processing.
Typically, this is carried out on the outskirts of the city.
Urban agriculture has a lot of promise for meeting fundamental human requirements since it not only supplies food but also assures a sustainable system for production and distribution, which gives people jobs and stable income.
Additionally, it assists nations in saving money on transportation expenses and environmental preservation.
Through street landscaping and aquaponics, it lowers stormwater runoff. Additionally, it promotes biodiversity, enhances air quality, and helps lessen the effects of urban heat islands.
When it comes to Integrated Pest Management, urban agriculture uses fewer industrial chemicals, which reduces the need for pesticides, synthetic fertilizers, and herbicides, especially when using organic agricultural techniques.
The impact of the advantages varies depending on the type of agriculture practiced and the maintenance techniques employed.
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