I am Alejandro Trillo and I am doing my PhD since February 2014, under Monserrat Vilà supervision at the Integrative Ecology Department. My main aim is study ecological effects of bumblebee spillover from strawberry crops to surrounding habitats.
Habitat loss, fragmentation and isolation reduce diversity of particular species and their function, as it is the case for pollinators. Pollinators are essential for the ecosystem services they provide to sustain wild plant populations, and also fruit and seed production for human consumption. Huelva province is amongst the major producer of strawberry worldwide. To improve their yield, growers place commercial hives of bumblebees. In this thesis, we want to disentangle ecological consequences about this bumblebee spillover. So, we will assess bumblebee abundance in the surrounding habitat related to greenhouse cover, we will answer questions about pathogen prevalence in a landscape context. We will explore population genetics. We will research if spillover affects entomophilous plant fitness. And finally, we will assess if managed pollinators could affect abundance of native species in the crops.
PhD Severo-Ochoa
e-mail: atrillo@ebd.csic.es
PhD Estación Biológica de Doñana 