Cecilia CostaCouncil for Agricultural Research and Analysis of the Agricultural Economy · Agriculture and Environment Research Centre
Cecilia Costa
PhD
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132
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Introduction
Additional affiliations
March 2001 - present
Publications
Publications (132)
The Western honey bee (Apis mellifera) subspecies exhibit local adaptive traits that evolved in response to the different environments that characterize their native distribution ranges. An important trait is the cuticular hydrocarbon (CHC) profile, which helps to prevent desiccation and mediate communication. We compared the CHC profiles of six Eu...
The Tropilaelaps spp. (Mesostigmata: Laelapidae), an ectoparasitic mite originally associated with such Asian giant honey bees as Apis dorsata , A. breviligula and A. laboriosa , has increasingly become a focus of global concern due to its severe effects on Western honey bee colonies ( Apis mellifera ) and its recent geographic expansion. This stud...
We introduce a novel method for detecting and monitoring T. mercedesae based on the mite's characteristic biology (reduced feeding as bee pupae mature, brief dispersal phase on adult bees and agility) and the use of wax strips for decapping sealed brood area. Sealed worker brood cells at the development stage of white to purple-eyed pupae are swift...
The Red dwarf honey bee (Apis florea), is a single-comb open-nesting member of the genus Apis
with a natural distribution area stretching from the Indomalayan realm on the east to the
Persian Gulf on the west. However, it is reportedly colonising new territories mainly due to
anthropogenic activities. Nowadays it can be found from Taiwan on the eas...
The Western honey bee (Apis mellifera) subspecies exhibit local adaptive traits that evolved in response to the different environments that characterize their native distribution ranges. An important trait is the cuticular hydrocarbon (CHC) profile, which helps preventing desiccation and mediating communication. We compared the CHC profiles of six...
In 2017, the European Commission initiated the EurBeST study to explore the possibilities of using selective breeding of honey bees to increase Varroa resistance traits. One of the specific aims of the study was to assess the process of honey bee queen breeding through an economic analysis. The methodology for calculating the costs of queen product...
Here, we cover a wide range of methods currently in use and recommended in modern queen rearing, selection, and breeding. The recommendations are meant to serve as standards for scientific and practical beekeeping purposes. The basic conditions and different management techniques for queen rearing are described, including recommendations for suitab...
Infectious and parasitic agents (IPAs) and their associated diseases are major environmental stressors that jeopardize bee health, both alone and in interaction with other stressors. Their impact on pollinator communities can be assessed by studying multiple sentinel bee species. Here, we analysed the field exposure of three sentinel managed bee sp...
Sustainable agriculture requires balancing crop yields with the effects of pesticides on non-target organisms, such as bees and other crop pollinators. Field studies demonstrated that agricultural use of neonicotinoid insecticides can negatively affect wild bee species1,2, leading to restrictions on these compounds³. However, besides neonicotinoids...
Managed bee species provide essential pollination services that contribute to food security worldwide. However, managed bees face a diverse array of threats and anticipating these, and potential opportunities to reduce risks, is essential for the sustainable management of pollination services. We conducted a horizon scanning exercise with 20 expert...
Introduction
Heterogeneity in composition and spatial configuration of landscape elements support diversity and abundance of flower-visiting insects, but this is likely dependent on taxonomic group, spatial scale, weather and climatic conditions, and is particularly impacted by agricultural intensification. Here, we analyzed the impacts of both asp...
Simple Summary
A life cycle assessment (based on ISO 14040 and 14044) considering the climate change (CC) impact category on beekeeping was performed. To this aim, for two consecutive years, data from beekeeping farms were collected, including data on annual honey production, other hive products, geographical locations of the apiaries, the processi...
There is growing evidence that pesticides may be among the causes of worldwide bee declines, which has resulted in repeated calls for their increased scrutiny in regulatory assessments. One recurring concern is that the current frameworks may be biased towards assessing risks to the honey bee. This paradigm requires extrapolating toxicity informati...
Today, as never before, the beekeeping community is at a crossroads to define the long-term strategy on how to match the challenges evoked by the tiny enemy called Varroa destructor. From the ocean of options for varroa control, two main ideas clash: the pragmatic therapeutic action, with all the chemical arsenal at its disposal, and the idealistic...
To provide a complete portrayal of the multiple factors negatively impacting insects in agricultural landscapes it is necessary to assess the concurrent incidence, magnitude, and interactions among multiple stressors over substantial biogeographical scales. Trans-national ecological field investigations with wide-ranging stakeholders typically enco...
Honey bee subspecies originate from specific geographic areas in Africa, Europe and the Middle East, and beekeepers interested in specific phenotypes have imported genetic material to regions outside of their original range for use either in pure lines or controlled crosses. Moreover, imported drones are present in the environment and mate naturall...
We assembled the mitogenome of Apis mellifera siciliana, which was previously identified as African by the tRNA-leu-cox2 intergenic region. The mitogenome is 16,590 bp long. The gene content and organization are identical to other A. mellifera mitogenomes, containing 13 protein-coding genes, 22 transfer RNA genes, and 2 ribosomal RNA genes. Phyloge...
Four models based on convolutional neural networks were used to investigate whether image recognition techniques applied to honey bee wings could be used to discriminate among honey bee subspecies. A dataset consisting of 9887 wing images belonging to 7 subspecies and one hybrid was analysed with ResNet 50, MobileNet V2, Inception Net V3, and Incep...
Mitochondrial genomes (mitogenomes) are involved in cellular energy metabolism and have been shown to undergo adaptive evolution in organisms with increased energy-consuming activities. The genetically selected high royal jelly-producing bees (RJBs, Apis mellifera ligustica) in China can produce 10 times more royal jelly, a highly nutritional and f...
With 2,000 species currently recorded in Europe, bees are a highly diversified and efficient group of pollinating insects. They obtain their nutrients from nectar and pollen of flowers. However, the chemical composition of these resources, especially of pollen (e.g., protein, lipid, amino acids, fatty acids, or sterol content), is highly variable a...
EurBeST — A Pilot Study Testing Varroa-resistant Bees Under Commercial Beekeeping Conditions.
Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) has been increasingly used for the improvement of the environ-mental performance of products and services, including agro-food chains. Pollination by hon-eybees can be regarded as one of the functions of an apicultural system and is of utmost im-portance for both natural ecosystems and agriculture. Furthermore, the beeke...
Honey bee subspecies originate from specific geographic areas in Africa, Europe and the Middle East. The interest of beekeepers in specific phenotypes has led them to import subspecies to regions outside of their original range. The resulting admixture complicates population genetics analyses and populations stratification can be a major problem fo...
EURBEST KSIĄŻKA METOD OCENY PSZCZELARZE PROWADZĄCY OCENĘ STACJONARNĄ PT Uzunov et., 2021
EURBEST KSIĄŻKA METOD OCENY PSZCZELARZE PROWADZĄCY OCENĘ TERENOWĄ Uzunov et al., 2021
Honey bee mating is difficult to control as it occurs in flight, several kilometers away from the hive of origin of both queens and drones. In recent years, there has been an increase in the introduction into Italy of queen bees and swarms originating from interracial crossings (especially those known as “Buckfast”), or belonging to non-native subs...
Single page summary of Vanderplank et al (2021) - contains a QR code for accessing the paper
Current global change substantially threatens pollinators, which directly impacts the pollination services underpinning the stability, structure and functioning of ecosystems. Among these threats, many synergistic drivers such as habitat destruction and fragmentation, increasing use of agrochemicals, decreasing resource diversity as well as climate...
Assessment of colony infestation by Varroa destructor is a crucial part of the Integrated
Pest Management (IPM) applied to beekeeping. Natural mite fall, quantified by counting the mites on sticky sheets, is considered a reference method to estimate varroa infestation level in honey bee colonies. However, in recent years, alternative methods that c...
At the end of the last glaciation, Apis mellifera was established in northern Europe. In Italy, Apis melliferaligustica adapted to the mild climate and to the rich floristic biodiversity. Today, with the spread of Varroa destructor and with the increasing use of pesticides in agriculture, the Ligustica subspecies is increasingly dependent on human...
Background
With numerous endemic subspecies representing four of its five evolutionary lineages, Europe holds a large fraction of Apis mellifera genetic diversity. This diversity and the natural distribution range have been altered by anthropogenic factors. The conservation of this natural heritage relies on the availability of accurate tools for s...
Developing resistance to the varroa mite in honey bees is a major goal for apicultural science and practice, the development of selection strategies and the availability of resistant stock. Here we present an extended literature review and survey of resistant populations and selection programs in the EU and elsewhere, including expert interviews. W...
In the fight against the Varroa destructor mite, selective breeding of honey bee (Apis mellifera L.) populations that are resistant to the parasitic mite stands as a sustainable solution. Selection initiatives indicate that using the suppressed mite reproduction (SMR) trait as a selection criterion is a suitable tool to breed such resistant bee pop...
Throughout western Europe, the endemic honeybee subspecies Apis mellifera mellifera, the black bee, has gradually been replaced in many beekeeper operations by other subspecies and hybrids of A. m. ligustica, A. m. carnica, A.m. caucasica, (C-type bees) and A. m. mellifera (M-type bees), which were found to be more efficient producers of honey or r...
Background:
Genetic improvement of honey bees is more difficult compared to other livestock, due to the very different reproductive behavior. Estimation of breeding values requires specific adjustment and the use of sires in the pedigree is only possible when mating of queens and drones is strictly controlled. In the breeding program of the Nation...
Meiotic recombination is an essential component of eukaryotic sexual reproduction, but its frequency varies within and between genomes. Although it is well established that honey bees have a high recombination rate with about 20 cM/Mbp, the proximate and ultimate causes of this exceptional rate are poorly understood. Here, we describe six linkage m...
Nowadays the Western honey bee (Apis mellifera) is present worldwide, wherever beekeeping is possible, though its native habitat spreads out across Europe, Africa and parts of Western Asia. About 26 different subspecies evolved through time, each adapted by natural selection to cope with the local environmental conditions. During the past 2 centuri...
Honeybee is native from Africa, Europe and western Asia and its presence elsewhere in the world is due to human imports. In New Caledonia, importation of Western-Europe M lineage honeybees from France started in the 19th century and these black honeybees were dominant until the late 1980’s when an American foulbrood infestation decimated the coloni...
The beekeeper plays a key role in maintaining the health status of managed honey bee colonies and ensuring their productivity. However, a clear overview on the main actions carried out by beekeepers and their role for the successful management of honey bees is only partially addressed. In this study, we aim at providing: i) a generalized conceptual...
The tRNAleu-COX2 intergenic region of the mitochondrial DNA has been used for assessing diversity in honey bee (Apis mellifera L.) populations worldwide. However, differential mutation rates in different partitions of the mitogenome may produce incongruent results. In this study, we sequenced 123 mitogenomes of 7 subspecies from lineages A, M, and...
Honey bees are pollinators that play a key-role in plant biodiversity conservation and crop production. This unique insect species has been managed in hives by beekeepers for millennia, even though such a peculiar animal production system never resulted in the domestication of the western honey bee. The western honey bee was originally distributed...
Beekeeping is an important sector of the European agriculture generating employment and increasing incomes in rural areas. The role of the beekeeper is considered fundamental for maintaining the health status of a managed honey bee colony and, if intended, ensure its productivity. Several monitoring projects highlighted the direct and/or indirect r...
In honey bees, colonies are made up of many individuals that belong to different castes and generations and are interdependent on functioning of the super-organism. The challenge in honey bee breeding program is estimation of non-genetic and genetic effects. In Italian breeding program mating the queens are with unknown drones. Using 4003 records f...
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Honey bee (Apis mellifera L.) health is compromised by complex interactions between multiple stressors, among which pesticides play a major role. To better understand the extent of honey bee colonies' exposure to pesticides in time and space, we conducted a survey by collecting corbicular pollen from returning honey bee foragers in 53 Italian apiar...
Method of screening for suppressed mite reprodcution (SMR) and recapping of brood cells (REC) in European honey bees developed by members of Research Network for Sustainable Bee Breeding (RNSBB).
The parasitic mite Varroa destructor Anderson & Trueman (Acari: Mesostigmata) is the most challenging honey bee (Apis mellifera L.) pest for beekeepers worldwide. Studies involving the use of entomopathogenic fungi for control of mite populations have shown that there is potential for their use, but there are several obstacles to their direct appli...
Neonicotinoids have been among the most frequently used insecticides in the cultivation of several crops and orchards. Till 2012, imidacloprid represented 41.5% of the whole neonicotinoid market and thiamethoxam was the second biggest neonicotinoid, followed by clothianidin. However, almost two years ago, a decision was made by the EC parliament to...
Background
The aim of this work was to provide an overview of prevalence and level of acaricides in beeswax used in Italy in the past ten years, by analysing 1319 beeswax samples processed by the certified laboratory of the Italian bee research institute.
Results
The proportion of samples positive to at least one active ingredient decreased betwee...
The genetic variability of the A. m. sicula and ligustica are today evaluated by nuclear and mitochondrial markers. The aim of this work was to create a reference database to classify individuals of unknown origin as belonging to one of the two subspecies or hybrids. The DNA was extracted from the legs of 54 samples of A. m. ligustica and 209 of A....
The honey bee Apis mellifera, of which there are currently 28 identified subspecies and numerous ecotypes, have been evolving and adapting to a wide range of environments for hundreds of thousands of years within their native range of Europe, Africa and Asia. Honey bees have been widely dispersed over the past several hundred years and are now also...
The development of resistance in honeybee pests and diseases means that conventional drug treatments are becoming less effective. Also, chemical residues in bee products are a serious problem for beekeepers. The main diseases that affect honeybees worldwide and for which chemical treatments are used are the bacterial infections American (AFB) and E...
The Western honeybees Apis mellifera carnica and A. m. ligustica are closely related subspecies living in neighbouring regions. Metabolism and the upper lethal thermal limits are crucial physiological traits, adapted in the evolutionary process to environment and climate conditions. We investigated whether samples from these two ecotypes differ in...
cecilia.costa@entecra.it
The aim of this study was to investigate the effects of genotype-environment interactions on the survival, performance and disease susceptibility of honey bee colonies headed by queens originating from several areas in Europe. We included 16 different genotypes from different backgrounds (some from breeding programs with s...