Advances in the Use of Hymenoptera as Bioindicators in Agricultural Landscapes

Dear Colleagues,

We are pleased to invite you to contribute to a Special Issue on the latest advances in the use of Hymenoptera as bioindicators in agricultural landscapes.

In recent years, a global decline in terrestrial biodiversity has been reported by an increasing number of studies. Among other factors, such as climate change, this has been largely attributed to land-use intensification. To evaluate the state of ecosystems and the effectiveness of measures that aim to support biodiversity, reliable (bio-)indicators are required.

Hymenoptera are promising bioindicators for the state of terrestrial ecosystems, as they are mobile, have short generation times, and are sensitive to habitat fragmentation and environmental changes. Moreover, they fulfill important ecosystem services such as pollination and biological pest control and collect and provide valuable information about the environment. For example, collected pollen can bear information about the availability of floral resources and pesticide residues in the landscape, and the incidence of parasitoid Hymenoptera correlates with overall arthropod richness due to trophic interactions. Innovative approaches, such as recent advances in molecular biology tools or technical devices for automatic species recognition, combined with landscape assessments based on remote sensing, are opening new opportunities to use Hymenoptera as sources of information on the state of the environment.

This Special Issue aims to provide a comprehensive collection of the latest developments in the field. Invited are all kinds of contributions, such as original, theoretical, empirical, or applied research articles, reviews, quantitative meta-analyses, or perspective articles that focus on the potential use of Hymenoptera (managed and wild bees, (parasitoid) wasps and ants) or their products (e.g., honey or pollen) as bioindicators to reflect the state of and threats to biodiversity in agricultural landscapes.

Dr. Frank M. J. Sommerlandt
Prof. Dr. Marika Mänd
Dr. Wiebke Sickel
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 250 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for assessment.

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.