In June and July, our team carried out fieldwork in cacao plantations in Cameroon, together with our partners at the University of Dschang, in collaboration with Prof. Marie Caroline Momo Solefack. Cameroon is one of the world’s major cacao producers, and most of its cacao is grown by smallholder farmers in agroforestry systems. In plantations… Continue reading Fieldwork in Cameroon
Our new study has been published in Basic and Applied Ecology. It takes a fresh look at a long-standing question in cacao research: which insects actually pollinate the flowers? Cacao flowers are visited by many small insects, and recent studies have listed a growing number of them as potential pollinators. But visiting a flower is… Continue reading New paper: who really pollinates cacao?
The cocoa pollination research team of the VUB’s Biology Department kindly invites you to a series of short lectures by international cocoa experts providing an integrated overview of different challenges related to the sustainable production of one of the most important global tropical cash crops.
On December 5th a large partnership including the main players in the Belgian Chocolate industry, government branches, ngo's and academic institutions have signed the Beyond Chocolate charter. From the conception of the intiative our research group has provided scientific advice to contribute to making this possible. Even now at this early stage, the initiative has… Continue reading Launch of Beyond Chocolate Initiative
In a new paper, VUB researchers (Mathil Vandromme, Hendrik Trekels and Bram Vanschoenwinkel) and CATIE researchers (Norvin Sepúlveda Ruiz and Eduardo Somarriba) report the presence of cacao pollinators in bromeliad plants and identify factors that influence their abundances. Bromeliads are common plants in the Neotropics. Being epiphytic, they are often incorrectly considered as parasites and removed from agroforestry systems.… Continue reading New paper: exploring the potential of bromeliads as sources of cacao pollinators
