The MEDIBEES consortium, led by CIAPA of Spain and of which the University of Malta is a member, has been awarded 1.74 million euros of funding by the EU PRIMA programme under Horizon 2020.
MEDIBEES (Monitoring of the Mediterranean Honeybee Subspecies and their Resilience to Climate Change for the Improvement of Sustainable Agro-Ecosystems) will identify honeybee colonies and subspecies that are most resilient to climate change and common pathogens throughout the Mediterranean region. Honeybees are critical to sustainable agricultural systems and the project aims to contribute to this sustainability in the context of the increased desertification of the region due to climate change.
The work will involve comprehensive monitoring of the diversity of honeybees and assessment of colony resistance throughout the Mediterranean region ranging from the Eastern Mediterranean coast in Turkey and Lebanon to the western end in Morocco and Spain. It is expected that MEDIBEES will generate new genetic information and markers that will be key to the selection of resilient honeybee breeds.
The participation of the University of Malta is led by Dr Marion Zammit Mangion (Department of Physiology and Biochemistry) with the contributions of Dr Belinda Gambin (Institute of Earth Systems) and Dr Sandro Lanfranco (Department of Biology).
The University of Malta will be leading a number of Work Packages and will be responsible for identifying the major threats and challenges in the region and on the basis of the outcomes defining the strategy that will be adopted by the Consortium.
The Maltese team will also conduct field studies on the native Maltese honeybee and carry out the mitochondrial tests of the genetic studies on all the honeybee subspecies investigated in the project.