Electronic radio tags could be used to track invasive Asian hornets and stop them colonising the UK and killing honeybees, new research shows.
Electronic radio tags could be used to track invasive Asian hornets and stop them colonising the UK and killing honeybees, new research shows.
Scientists from the University of Exeter attached tiny tags to Asian hornets, then used a tracking device to follow them to their nests; the first time this has been achieved.
They tested the technique in southern France[i] and Jersey[ii] – where Asian hornets are well established – and the tags led researchers to five previously undiscovered nests.
“Our new method of tracking offers a really important new tool to tackle the spread of this invader, providing an efficient means of finding hornets’ nests in urban, rural and wooded environments,” said lead researcher Dr Peter Kennedy, of the Environment and Sustainability Institute on the University of Exeter’s Penryn Campus in Cornwall.
Asian hornets prey on honeybees and other pollinators, and the scientists say the technique demonstrated in their study could help protect Britain’s “beleaguered pollinator populations”.
Read more at University of Exeter
Image: Asian hornet with a honeybee. (Credit: Peter Kennedy)
