Tracking large bees in open landscapes with active radio tags – advantages and challenges using stationary receivers.

1. Recent technological advancements have enabled to study animal movement of large insects, such as carpenter bees. Remote tracking devices reveal movement patterns by applying miniaturised very-high-frequency (VHF) tags on large insects, such as wild bees. VHF tags enable to study population dynamics and migration patterns and spatial distribution in ecologically relevant species supporting effective conservation strategies.2. We applied VHF transmitters on two European carpenter bee species, Xylocopa valga and Xylocopa violacea,with the aim to establish a remote tracking approach for large bees. We studied the effect of the tags on the species flight behavior and their movement patterns within an open grassland landscape in Central Europe.3. Here, we provide a detailed description of the transmitter application on the dorsal body of the bees. We give a step-by-step guide from purchasing the material to constructing stationary receivers. We discuss potential pitfalls of stationary receivers and how to overcome them in the field. Further, we provide a data set and a script to process the information collected by the receivers with open-source programs.4. Our results indicate the importance of preliminary tests on the flight behaviour of the tagged bees as even miniaturized tags significantly affected the flight duration and time.1. 近年来的技术进步使得针对大型昆虫（如木蜂）的运动研究得以开展。科研人员通过在野生蜂类等大型昆虫身上佩戴微型甚高频（Very High Frequency，VHF）标签，借助远程追踪设备揭示其运动模式。VHF标签可用于研究生态相关物种的种群动态、迁徙模式与空间分布，为制定有效的保护策略提供支撑。 2. 本研究针对两种欧洲木蜂物种——绒木蜂（Xylocopa valga）和紫木蜂（Xylocopa violacea）佩戴了VHF发射器，旨在建立一套适用于大型蜂类的远程追踪方法。我们在中欧的开放草原景观中，探究了标签对受试蜂类飞行行为及其运动模式的影响。 3. 本文详细描述了在蜂类背部安装发射器的操作流程，提供从采购材料到搭建固定式接收器的分步指南，并讨论了固定式接收器可能存在的缺陷及野外解决方案。此外，本数据集配套了用于利用开源程序处理接收器采集数据的脚本文件。 4. 研究结果表明，对佩戴标签的蜂类进行飞行行为预测试至关重要——即便微型标签也会显著影响其飞行时长与飞行时间。