Registration number: SQ02010102
Project title: Supporting Wild Bee Populations through the Effective Creation of New Nesting Opportunities
Funding Agency: Technology Agency of the Czech Republic (TA CR)
Programme: Environment for Life 2
Project coordinator: Czech University of Life Sciences Prague, Faculty of Environmental Sciences
Project partners: University of Hradec Králové
Faculty of Environmental Sciences project leader: doc. Ing. Michal Knapp, Ph.D.
Project Duration: 04/2026 – 03/2029
Total Project Budget: CZK 11,565,000
Budget for the Faculty of Environmental Sciences: CZK 8,137,000
Abstract: The PROVČELÍÍÍÍÍ project aims to support populations of wild bees through the development and validation of effective measures for creating new nesting opportunities across different types of environments. Wild bees represent a key group of pollinators that provide one of the most important ecosystem services—plant pollination—which is essential for maintaining biodiversity, ensuring agricultural productivity, and sustaining ecosystem functioning. The project therefore seeks to improve the understanding of nesting requirements of many wild bee species from the microhabitat to the landscape scale and to identify the factors influencing their occurrence and reproductive success. Based on these findings, the project will optimize the design and use of artificial nesting structures for cavity-nesting species while also developing suitable management measures to support ground-nesting bees. The research includes extensive field experiments conducted in several regions of the Czech Republic, enabling the evaluation of the effectiveness of different conservation measures across a range of landscape types, including urban and other human-modified environments. The results will provide new insights into pollinator ecology and conservation while delivering practically applicable methodologies for enhancing wild bee populations in both rural landscapes and urban areas. These outputs will be relevant for researchers, conservation practitioners, landscape managers, and public authorities involved in biodiversity protection and ecosystem adaptation to ongoing environmental change.