Biotracks technology is fitting the “smallest harmonic radar tag ever” onto bees. A cross-department team at Oxford University, led by Dr. Tonya Lander, is using these chips to improve understanding of pollinator habits and migration behaviour.
Harmonic radar tags were invented by the team to investigate declining insect and bird populations and how to help them.
Associate Professor of Engineering Science Chris Stevens explained that tracking the bees includes two systems. The first “converts radar signals to a higher frequency”, which is then picked up with receivers carried on drones, illuminating the bee. This then “pings back a higher frequency signal”, which can be located with another radio receiver. The second system uses LED lights which reflect off the bee’s tags and are then picked up by a camera.
Lander said that Biotracks technology “will change our understanding of insect use of landscapes at the large spatial scale”. Biotrackers extend the viewing range of insects, thus allowing researchers to better understand how bees maintain the ecosystem in order to form conservation strategies.
Many species of insects are in decline, posing a risk to the 35% of global crop production and 85% of wild flowering plants that rely on pollinators. Lander explained in a video for the University’s website that this means: “[the pollinators will] set fewer or possibly no seeds, which means no fruit for us to eat but also no reproduction of those plants for the next generations.”
Although Lander doesn’t know exactly how this technology will be used, she is hopeful others may find “exciting new applications” for the equipment beyond insect and bird migration.
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