23 - Models of Aging in Honeybee Workers

Social hymenopteran insects, including wasps, bees, and ants, are amazing insects with a versatile range of physiological and behavioural plasticity. The life span of ageing among different castes can be different from weeks to years. This plasticity is controlled by environmental and genetic factors. Oxidative stress is one of the mechanisms to explain the plasticity of ageing. In this report, we will review the molecular mechanisms underlying oxidative stress, how oxidative stress is associated with caste differentiation, epigenetics, energy and metabolic process, environmental and pesticide contamination in social insects. Future research is still needed to reveal new mechanisms of oxidative stress and ageing in social insects.

Agricultural practices are essential for sustaining the human population, but at the same time they can directly disrupt ecosystem functioning. Ecological risk assessment (ERA) aims to estimate possible adverse effects of human activities on ecosystems and their parts. Current ERA practices, however, incorporate very little ecology and base the risk estimates on the results of standard tests with several standard species. The main obstacles for a more ecologically relevant ERA are the lack of clear protection goals and the inherent complexity of ecosystems that is hard to approach empirically. In this paper, we argue that the ecosystem services framework offers an opportunity to define clear and ecologically relevant protection goals. At the same time, ecological models provide the tools to address ecological complexity to the degree needed to link measurement endpoints and ecosystem services, and to quantify service provision and possible adverse effects from human activities. We focus on the ecosystem services relevant for agroecosystem functioning, including pollination, biocontrol and eutrophication effects and present modeling studies relevant for quantification of each of the services. The challenges of the ecosystem services approach are discussed as well as the limitations of ecological models in the context of ERA. A broad, multi-stakeholder dialog is necessary to aid the definition of protection goals in terms of services delivered by ecosystems and their parts. The need to capture spatio-temporal dynamics and possible interactions among service providers pose challenges for ecological models as a basis for decision making. However, we argue that both fields are advancing quickly and can prove very valuable in achieving more ecologically relevant ERA.