Arthropod Natural Enemies of Bees
A special issue of Insects (ISSN 2075-4450). This special issue belongs to the section "Insect Pest and Vector Management".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (15 July 2023) | Viewed by 1114
Special Issue Editors
Interests: insect behavioural ecology and evolution; food resource specialization; nesting strategies; sociality; intra-specific communication; interspecific interactions with natural enemies; morpho-physiological adaptations in relation to different life strategies
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
The current pollinator crisis worldwide is reflected in a huge interest in the biology, diversity, and impacts of the natural enemies of bees—the main pollinators of flowering plants on Earth. However, while most studies focus on pathogens such as viruses, bacteria, and fungi, arthropod natural enemies are relatively less investigated (excluding a few species especially harmful to the honeybee). Many insects and mites use domestic and wild bees as food or exploit their valuable work as pollen-collecting organisms as food. Bees fall victim to a huge variety of arthropod natural enemies that harm their fitness, including predators that hunt upon adults and/or larvae, parasitoids that lay their eggs in or on adults and larvae, and kleptoparasites which lay eggs on the food that bees collect and store into their nests to feed their brood. The biology of most of this diverse and rich fauna agonistically associated with bees merits greater attention. Bees, overall, are attacked by a wide range of predatory and/or parasitic arthropods from many lineages, including beetles, flies, wasps, moths, ants, mites, and even other bees (cuckoo bees) which during evolution have lost the ability to collect pollen by their own and thus have to exploit the food resources of other species. In this Special Issue, we would like to attract the attention of researchers who study all aspects of the biology of these natural enemies of bees. Investigations on behavioral ecology, community ecology, evolution, morpho-physiological adaptations, impacts, and control of these organisms are welcome. We invite the submission of high-quality original research articles and reviews covering these topics.
Dr. Carlo Polidori
Dr. Laura Bortolotti
Guest Editors
Manuscript Submission Information
Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.
Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Insects is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.
Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.
