This Laurentian University researcher is collecting DNA from the air inside beehives

A professor at Laurentian University in Sudbury will be putting honey bees to work to better understand how climate change is affecting different plants and pollinators across Ontario.

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

"Organisms and humans as well, and everything else, we shed DNA on a daily basis," Pepinelli said.

If you scratch your skin, for example, those skin cells contain your DNA, and are referred to as environmental DNA as soon as they leave your body, he explained.

Pepinelli says that before he came to work at Laurentian in September 2024, he was already working with beekeepers in southern Ontario to have them install his device in some of their beehives. 

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

"Inside the honey beehives, there are thousands of bees and they bring in pollen all the time, and nectar," Pepinelli said.

"You can imagine there's a lot of DNA inside."

In some early results, Pepinelli said his team found bees in a small area had interacted with around 100 different plant species.

"And then we found a lot of microbes, including all the microbes that compose the microbiome of honeybees," he said.

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

He's also connecting with beekeepers in northeastern Ontario to build a network extending to the south, where he can collect and analyze environmental DNA from hundreds of beehives.

"This is going to give us a big picture of how plants are flowering throughout time," he said.

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