Meeting of experts on pollinators in the Netherlands
by Jozef Polák
SUPER-B is a COST Action that between years 2014 and 2018 brought together scientific and societal communities involved in the conservation and sustainable management of ecosystem services mediated by pollinators. SUPER-B combines scientific evidence (existing and new knowledge) and social feedback for developing conservation strategies for pollinators. Specifically, the Action:
identify the role of insect pollination in agriculture and other ecosystems;
clarify best practices for mitigation of pollination loss, and
compare and contrast important drivers of pollinator loss (wild and managed species).
This COST Association has currently 36 Member countries, activities can be seen at www.superb-project.eu. Since the action has finished in April 2018, the last annual SUPER-B Management Committee Meeting was held between March 20. and 21. in Leiden, Netherlands, seat of Naturalis Biodiversity Center, workplace of Prof. Koos Biesmeijer, chair of the Action. Slovakia was represented by doc. Róbert Chlebo from the Faculty of Agrobiology and Food Resources of the Slovak University of Agriculture in Nitra. The results of the 4-year project activities were evaluated during the meeting, such as organizing of workshops, training schools and preparing common articles and position papers dealing with protection of pollinators. Results of our Faculty membership in this COST Action will be two common scientific papers dealing with Ecological Focus Areas for Pollinators and Pollination service provided by bees. Worth to see is also The assessment report of on pollinators, pollination and food production – key messages for policymakers, which can be downloaded from www.ipbes.net. As usual, the activities of such networks are not stopped by the end of financing of specific COST activity, and there is continual search for sustainability of acquired contacts. Two new Horizon 2020 projects have been successfully defended by SUPER-B members, another project on urban pollinators is being prepared and proposals for other grant schemes are evaluated to allow members of this professional consortium to meet also in the future.