The Economic Value of the Ecosystem Services of Beekeeping in the Czech Republic

Revolutionizing the Use of Honeybee Products in Healthcare: A Focused Review on Using Bee Pollen as a Potential Adjunct Material for Biomaterial Functionalization

The field of biomedical engineering highly demands technological improvements to allow the successful engraftment of biomaterials requested for healing damaged host tissues, tissue regeneration, and drug delivery. Polymeric materials, particularly natural polymers, are one of the primary suitable materials employed and functionalized to enhance their biocompatibility and thus confer advantageous features after graft implantation. Incorporating bioactive substances from nature is a good technique for expanding or increasing the functionality of biomaterial scaffolds, which may additionally encourage tissue healing. Our ecosystem provides natural resources, like honeybee products, comprising a rich blend of phytochemicals with interesting bioactive properties, which, when functionally coupled with biomedical biomaterials, result in the biomaterial exhibiting anti-inflammatory, antimicrobial, and antioxidant effects. Bee pollen is a sustainable product recently discovered as a new functionalizing agent for biomaterials. This review aims to articulate the general idea of using honeybee products for biomaterial engineering, mainly focusing on describing recent literature on experimental studies on biomaterials functionalized with bee pollen. We have also described the underlying mechanism of the bioactive attributes of bee pollen and shared our perspective on how future biomedical research will benefit from the fabrication of such functionalized biomaterials.

Ecosystem Services and Linkages of Naturally Managed Monotheca buxifolia (Falc.) A. DC. Forests with Local Communities across Contiguous Mountainous Ranges in Pakistan

The local community of the Suleiman and Hindukush mountain systems in Pakistan has largely depended on the natural resources of the environment since ancient times. The ecosystem of these regions is under huge pressure due to a lack of awareness and the uncontrolled interference of communal, commercial, security, political, and ecological conditions. The present study was designed to illuminate the link between mountain society and the consumption of the benefits from Monotheca phytocoenoses using the ecosystem services concept from the sphere of the socio-ecological system to cultural relations. The use of this approach is very important due to the visible role and dominant status of Monotheca vegetation within the ecological system of the region. M. buxifolia is strongly connected with both local and cultural traditions and is counted as a key species, particularly for high-mountain inhabitants. We report that Monotheca phytocoenoses provide several services including shelter, food, fodder, medicines, and wood, etc., to the indigenous community and is highly valued in the local culture because of the poor economic condition of the society. The concept of this cultural keystone species is crucial for understanding ecosystem services and must be considered for the protection and conservation of these habitats. The results of field and social studies have shown that the stable maintenance of Monotheca phytocoenosis forests ensures the existence of key species as the most important providers of ecosystem services, e.g., provisioning, regulation, maintenance and cultural services, indicating the close relations between society and the protection of mountain areas. According to the results obtained, the mountains community of the studied area believes that tree species like M. buxifolia, F. palmata, O. ferruginea, P. granatum, A. modesta, J. regia, etc., are the key components contributing to the function of both the mountain ecosystem and communities' well-being. This approach will be extremely useful for ensuring an inclusive management of the socio-ecological system of the Hindukush and Suleiman Mountain ranges of Pakistan.

Modeling the Potential Global Distribution of Honeybee Pest, Galleria mellonella under Changing Climate

Beekeeping is essential for the global food supply, yet honeybee health and hive numbers are increasingly threatened by habitat alteration, climate change, agrochemical overuse, pathogens, diseases, and insect pests. However, pests and diseases that have unknown spatial distribution and influences are blamed for diminishing honeybee colonies over the world. The greater wax moth (GWM), Galleria mellonella, is a pervasive pest of the honeybee, Apis mellifera. It has an international distribution that causes severe loss to the beekeeping industry. The GWM larvae burrow into the edge of unsealed cells that have pollen, bee brood, and honey through to the midrib of the wax comb. Burrowing larvae leave behind masses of webs that cause honey to leak out and entangle emerging bees, resulting in death by starvation, a phenomenon called galleriasis. In this study, the maximum entropy algorithm implemented in (Maxent) model was used to predict the global spatial distribution of GWM throughout the world. Two representative concentration pathways (RCPs) 2.6 and 8.5 of three global climate models (GCMs), were used to forecast the global distribution of GWM in 2050 and 2070. The Maxent models for GWM provided a high value of the Area Under Curve equal to 0.8 ± 0.001, which was a satisfactory result. Furthermore, True Skilled Statistics assured the perfection of the resultant models with a value equal to 0.7. These values indicated a significant correlation between the models and the ecology of the pest species. The models also showed a very high habitat suitability for the GWM in hot-spot honey exporting and importing countries. Furthermore, we extrapolated the economic impact of such pests in both feral and wild honeybee populations and consequently the global market of the honeybee industry.

Changing dietary patterns is necessary to improve the sustainability of Western diets from a One Health perspective

Western diets are associated with multiple environmental impacts and risks to human health. European countries are gradually taking action towards the Farm to Fork Strategy, embracing a Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) perspective to promote the sustainability of food production and consumption. Although LCA enables the comprehensive assessment of environmental impacts, diet-related human health and animal welfare impacts are often underrepresented. This study proposes integrating additional indicators into LCA to evaluate the sustainability of diets under the One Health (OH) approach, which holistically considers interlinked complex health issues between humans, animals and the environment. Human health loss is estimated according to risk factors for non-communicable diseases; while animal welfare is measured as animal life years suffered, loss of animal lives and loss of morally-adjusted animal lives. The extended LCA framework is applied to men and women's reference diets in the German federal state of North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW); compared to three optimized dietary scenarios under nutritional constraints: 1) the national dietary guidelines, 2) a vegan diet (VD) and 3) a Mediterranean diet (MD). Men's reference diet causes greater impacts than women's across OH dimensions due to the higher food consumption, especially of ready-to-eat meals, sausages, meat, and sweetened and alcoholic beverages. Both reference diets are associated with risk factors for cardiovascular diseases, diabetes, stroke and neoplasms. Besides meat, consumption of honey, fish and seafood has the greatest impact on animal welfare, because of the high number of individuals involved. Alternative diets improve the sustainability of food consumption in NRW, although trade-offs arise: MD worsens animal suffering due to the higher fish intake; water use increases in both VD and MD due the higher intake of nuts and vegetables. Results highlight the importance of including animal welfare and human health indicators in LCA to better elucidate the potential impacts of diets characterized by the high intake of animal products, from a OH perspective.