Flower sharing and pollinator health: a behavioural perspective

Abstract

Disease is an integral part of any organisms' life, and bees have evolved immune responses and a suite of hygienic behaviours to keep them at bay in the nest. It is now evident that flowers are another transmission hub for pathogens and parasites, raising questions about adaptations that help pollinating insects stay healthy while visiting hundreds of plants over their lifetime. Drawing on recent advances in our understanding of how bees of varying size, dietary specialization and sociality differ in their foraging ranges, navigational strategies and floral resource preferences, we explore the behavioural mechanisms and strategies that may enable foraging bees to reduce disease exposure and transmission risks at flowers by partitioning overlapping resources in space and in time. By taking a novel behavioural perspective, we highlight the missing links between disease biology and the ecology of plant–pollinator relationships, critical for improving the understanding of disease transmission risks and the better design and management of habitat for pollinator conservation. This article is part of the theme issue ‘Natural processes influencing pollinator health: from chemistry to landscapes’.

Molecular Detection and Phylogenetic Analysis of Deformed Wing Virus and Sacbrood Virus Isolated from Pollen

“…This suggests that the distribution of these viruses results from various factors, such as viral ecology in this environment or different levels of infection among pollinators when carrying the viruses with the pollen [ 35 , 37 ]. It is well known that honey bee viruses are not related only to the honey bee; instead, a different group of pollinators may be responsible for contamination of pollen [ 58 , 59 ]. The fact that DWV was the most prevalent virus in the wild pollinators [ 60 , 61 ] presupposes the increased detection of DWV in pollen grains.…”

Remote Sensing of Floral Resources for Pollinators – New Horizons From Satellites to Drones

“…Remote sensing approaches can facilitate the capture of large portions or the entirety of pollinators' foraging or migration ranges, which may allow for more spatially representative sampling of floral resources and can reduce the time and labor costs associated with manual sampling. Pollinating insects vary widely in how far they travel to forage or during migrations, with small-sized pollinators typically traveling shorter distances up to 1.4 km (Nicholls et al, 2022). Larger-sized, generalist pollinators travel further (e.g., social bees typically travel 1-2 km while the bumblebee-tailed bumblebee and Western honeybee can travel 12-15 km), while some species of butterfly can travel hundreds to thousands of kilometers during migrations (e.g., Chowdhury et al, 2020).…”

“…Alterations in the availability of floral resources and the macro-and micronutrients they provide may have important effects on the population strength, health, activity and navigation patterns of pollinators across a range of spatial scales -from the plant to the flower patch and wider landscape. Consequently, the landscape context is critical to understanding pollination behaviors and their effects on pollinator populations (e.g., Winfree et al, 2007;Betts et al, 2019;Pamminger et al, 2019;Timberlake et al, 2021;Nicholls et al, 2022). It is timely to assess how spatial data describing the time-varying spatial distribution of flowers can be obtained by integrating remote sensing technology more firmly into behavioral and ecological studies.…”

Natural processes influencing pollinator health

“…Nicholls et al . [ 73 ] highlight the importance of foraging behaviour for disease dynamics of pollinators. Horizontal transmission of pollinator pathogens often occurs on flowers [ 74 , 75 ].…”

“…A better understanding of the factors affecting floral pollinator disease transmission, such as floral traits and effects of flowering plant species diversity, may inform a better design of managed landscapes to reduce the spread of pollinator diseases. Existing studies in part show contradictory patterns for this interaction [ 73 ], but investigating effects of different foraging behaviour of diverse pollinator species on disease transmission may help resolve this.…”