This project aims to fight against the Asian hornet : Vespa velutina. These invasive species are becoming more and more important in Europe.
Why ?The decline of bees:
- Global honey production has decreased by 20,000 tons in less than 20 years.
- Several bee species have been classified as endangered species since October, 30th 2018.
- Their extinction would cause the disappearance of 70-90% of crops and plants.
The main drawback for most of the trap sold nowadays is that they are not specific to the asian hornet. Indeed, even if some of trap on the market have size selection criteria, they still attract other kinds of insect without distinction and regularly trap other species. This has an impact on the ecosystem, where each and every species has an important role. Even worse, self-made traps : the famous “bottle-trap”. These are even less specific than the one sold on the market and are not selective at all. Often, you can find wasps, european hornet and some fly species in these traps. As said before, each and every species has an important role in the ecosystem.
A specific solution to fight against the asian hornet is necessary. And this is our project “To Bee Hornet… To Bee !”
In order to re-establish our ecosystem and give our pollinating bees some air, the “To Bee… Hornet To Bee” team plans to create a biologic and specific trap to catch Vespa velutina.
The latter will be composed of one or several specific attractive molecules produced by ecological processes in microorganisms. Those molecules will be harmless to humans and the environment.
We are a group of 6 students from the University of Poitiers doing the final/second year of a Master’s degree in health engineering. The “iGEM Poitiers 2019” organization has been created for raising funds for this competition. Every member is playing a twofold role in this project and this organization.
The “To Bee Hornet To Bee” project has been initiated by our motivation. We have gathered 40 persons together from different level of schooling but also from different and compatible field of study to carry out this project.
A budget estimate for this project was drawn up, including registration fees for the contest (around 4000€), cost of attending to Giant Jamboree which is the introductory meeting of all the iGEM team and their project during 1 week in Boston (4100€ for the presence of all the team (6) and our supervisor).
Moreover, the cost of the experiments has been estimated (up to 20.100€) along with the financement of 6 months internship for 4 2nd year students of master degree (14100€) in order to have a smooth running for the project. In order to go to Boston where the competition is held, and where we will showcase our project, the fees were calculated (5700€). To that, we also need to add expenses for communication with tools such as flyers, posters, goodies … (1100€).
Finally, the travelling expenses for the Munich meet-up (unavoidable for the competition) have been estimated for 7 people (around 1700€). The chart presented above shows a global idea of the 51000€ needed for the realization of our project.