Abstract
Bumble bees are among the most imperiled pollinators. However, habitat use, especially nest site selection, remains relatively unknown. Methods to locate nests are invaluable to better understand habitat requirements and monitor wild populations. Building on prior study findings, we report constraints and possibilities observed while training detection dogs to locate bumble bee nests. Three conservation detection dogs were initially trained to three species of bumble bee nest material, first within glass jars concealed in a row of cinder blocks, then placed in the open or partially hidden for area searches. The next intended training step was to expose the dogs to natural nests located by community science volunteers. However, significant effort (> 250 hrs), yielded only two confirmed, natural nests suitable for dog training purposes. Although the dogs did not progress past the formative training stage valuable insight was gained. Maximum observed detection distance for bumble bee nest material during initial controlled training was 15 m, which decreased significantly (< 1 m) once training progressed to buried samples and natural nests. Three main considerations around future training and usage of detection dogs were identified. First, dogs might benefit from transitional training via exposures to known natural nests, regardless of species. However, it may be too difficult for people to find natural nests for this, and prior work demonstrated the ability of dogs to generalize and find natural nests after testing to artificially-buried nest material. Second, confirming a dog’s nest find, via resident bee presence, is nuanced. Third, future study design and objectives must harness strengths, and reflect limitations of detection dog surveys and search strategies, as extensively discussed in this paper. Prospective studies involving detection dogs for locating bumble bee nests would benefit from considering the drawbacks and opportunities discussed and can mitigate limitations through incorporating these considerations in their study design.
Highlights
25% of bumble bees assessed by the IUCN (International Union for Conservation of Nature https://www.iucnredlist.org) are in decline [1, 2] with habitat loss acknowledged as one of the main threats [2, 3]
We declined to proceed past the training stage to actively looking for wild nests via formal surveys because the core part of our approach was to offer naturally-occurring nests as the transitional training step, and we did not consider that the dogs reached the point of field-readiness within the allotted timeframe
The three major challenges/constraints we observed are: i) prior to fielding, and given their proven ability to generalize to numerous species in prior studies, we predict dogs would likely benefit from exposure to naturally-occurring bumble bee nests; this may neither be a realistic or feasible training scenario, certainly not as a standalone transitional training step, given the difficulty in finding naturally-occurring nests, ii) whether found by a human or by a dog, confirming a naturally-occurring find established through the presence of a resident individual in the nest is labour-intensive, time-consuming, and nuanced, and iii) study design, including selection of survey sites, must reflect the inherent realities and limitations of detection dog-handler search strategies and capabilities
Summary
25% of bumble bees assessed by the IUCN (International Union for Conservation of Nature https://www.iucnredlist.org) are in decline [1, 2] with habitat loss acknowledged as one of the main threats [2, 3]. Conserving and ensuring the availability of viable bumble bee nesting habitat is important for mitigating declines in bumble bee populations. Most bumble bee conservation efforts and habitat studies have focused on increasing floral resource availability [e.g. 10, 11] while nesting and overwintering resources have received comparatively little consideration. This may be because bumble bee nests are often well-concealed and difficult to locate [9]. To manage declining bumble bee species, it is important that we increase our knowledge of nesting habitat and our ability to locate nests
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