Promotion of the biodiversity of pollinators and arthropods beneficial to the agriculture
- Project start: 06/01/2025
- End of project: 05/31/2028
- Principal researcher: Isabel Albizu-Ana Díez
- Financing: INTERREG
- Program: SUDOE
- Call: eSUDOE 2021-2027
- Reference: S2/2.7/E0285
- Acronym: POLITA
- Total budget: €1,119,618.00
- Partners: NEIKER, SERIDA, EVENA, IPB, IFV, FV. Bergerac
General objective:
To design innovative agroecological practices to promote beneficial arthropod communities and enhance their ecosystem services (pollination, biological control, crop health, and microbiota transfer from arthropods to fruits) as a means of improving the resilience and competitiveness of the agricultural sector, specifically in grape and apple production.
Specific objectives:
- Characterization of arthropods of interest, definition of agricultural production systems, and contextualization of the regulatory framework.
- Pilot solutions for promoting arthropod communities.
- Knowledge transfer to the agricultural sector and public policies.
Results:
The interaction of arthropods with the vegetation surrounding crops favors the transfer of microorganisms with important functions and properties in the fermentation process for producing wine and cider.
The novelty lies in the study of the traceability of the microbiota entering the winery, from the plant to the insect, and from there to the berry or apple, for subsequent analysis and determination of the most interesting microbiota for fermentations in the wine and cider production process in different agroecosystems.
Furthermore, the introduction of apple cultivation, with the implementation of new management practices not common in orchards, will allow us to assess the role of pollinators in production.
