PLAN4BEE (Monitoring agro-ecosystems of sub-Saharan Africa: Pesticides and land use as stressors for plants, bees and pollination interactions) is a DFG funded project in the framework of the initiative “African-German Scientific Exchange”. The objective of this two-stage initiative is to connect researchers from African countries and Germany to initiate international collaboration. The project starts with a DFG kick-off workshop in Bonn.

Our project aims to initiate collaboration with four African project partners in four different countries (Cameroon, Ivory Coast, Benin and Kenya) along a west to east trajectory in sub-Sahara Africa. Our aims are to study, understand and minimize the common anthropomorphic stressors of pesticides and intensive agricultural land use on plants, bees and pollination interactions in sub-Sahara Africa.

In our initial exchange, we will develop the skill sets of all project partners in order to launch a standardized Pollinator Monitoring Program and to improve crop pollination of important cash crops. By organizing workshops in Ngaoundéré (Cameroon) and Braunschweig (Germany), networking with African and European scientists, and facilitating knowledge transfer at the German partner institutions, we lay the foundation for a DFG project proposal. The resulting collaborative project will be divided into three complementary modules on (A) plant-pollinator interactions, (B) Pesticides and bee health of managed and wild bees, and (C) Pollinators and pollinator competition as a function of land-use parameters.