A professor at Laurentian University in Sudbury will employ honeybees to better understand how climate change affects different plants and pollinators in Ontario.

Mateus Pepinelli, an assistant professor at the Laurentian School of Natural Sciences, has developed a small device that can collect environmental DNA from the surrounding air.

“We shed DNA on a daily basis in organisms, humans and everything else,” Pepinelli said.

For example, when you scratch your skin, those skin cells contain your DNA, and as soon as they leave your body, they become referred to as environmental DNA, he explained.

Pepinelli says he is already working with beekeepers in southern Ontario to get them to install his device in some beehives before coming to work at Laurentian in September 2024.

Made with computer fans, some 3D-printed parts and a power bank, the devices draw in surrounding air to capture environmental DNA inside the beehive.

“Honey bee hives have thousands of bees inside, and they’re always bringing pollen and nectar,” Pepinelli said.

“You can imagine there’s a lot of DNA in there.”

Pepinelli said that in initial results, his team found that bees interacted with about 100 different plant species in a small area.

“Then we found a multitude of microbes, including all the microbes that make up the honeybee microbiome,” he said.

With support from Laurentian’s Kathryne Kril-Atkins and Michael R. Atkins Innovation Fellowship, Pepinelli says he plans to upgrade his devices. Working closely with the university’s innovation area, which has 3D printers, they collect environmental DNA.

It is also connecting with beekeepers in northeastern Ontario to establish a network extending south where it can collect and analyze environmental DNA from hundreds of beehives.

“This will give us a big picture of how plants bloom over time,” he said.

The information could help paint a better picture of how changes in climate, along with other environmental factors, affect plants and pollinators, Pepinelli says.