Hungry for quality—individual bumblebees forage flexibly to collect high-quality pollen

Ruedenauer, Fabian A.; Spaethe, Johannes; Leonhardt, Sara D.

doi:10.1007/s00265-016-2129-8

Cited by 73 publications

(86 citation statements)

References 52 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…In the field, we observed bees antennating pollen, potentially assessing its quality. Bumble bees appear to determine pollen quality by its protein content through tactile chemoreceptors and show preferences for high-protein pollen (26,52), whereas honey bees do not appear to share the same preference (25,29,30). Although both species may be sensitive to protein quality, the preferences observed in previous studies may reflect species-specific differences in nutritional requirements for protein and lipids.…”

Section: Discussioncontrasting

confidence: 45%

Macronutrient ratios in pollen shape bumble bee ( Bombus impatiens ) foraging strategies and floral preferences

Vaudo

Patch

Mortensen

et al. 2016

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

298

302

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

To fuel their activities and rear their offspring, foraging bees must obtain a sufficient quality and quantity of nutritional resources from a diverse plant community. Pollen is the primary source of proteins and lipids for bees, and the concentrations of these nutrients in pollen can vary widely among host-plant species. Therefore we hypothesized that foraging decisions of bumble bees are driven by both the protein and lipid content of pollen. By successively reducing environmental and floral cues, we analyzed pollen-foraging preferences of Bombus impatiens in (i) host-plant species, (ii) pollen isolated from these hostplant species, and (iii) nutritionally modified single-source pollen diets encompassing a range of protein and lipid concentrations. In our semifield experiments, B. impatiens foragers exponentially increased their foraging rates of pollen from plant species with high protein: lipid (P:L) ratios; the most preferred plant species had the highest ratio (∼4.6:1). These preferences were confirmed in cage studies where, in pairwise comparisons in the absence of other floral cues, B. impatiens workers still preferred pollen with higher P:L ratios. Finally, when presented with nutritionally modified pollen, workers were most attracted to pollen with P:L ratios of 5:1 and 10:1, but increasing the protein or lipid concentration (while leaving ratios intact) reduced attraction. Thus, macronutritional ratios appear to be a primary factor driving bee pollen-foraging behavior and may explain observed patterns of host-plant visitation across the landscape. The nutritional quality of pollen resources should be taken into consideration when designing conservation habitats supporting bee populations.foraging behavior | nutritional ecology | pollen | pollinator | preferences F oraging animals must obtain appropriate nutrients for growth, development, and reproduction from their environments. Bees forage in a very complex and changing environment, where floral nutritional resources (nectar and pollen) vary widely in quality and quantity among plant species (1). These resources are accompanied by myriad floral cues, including floral odors, color, morphology, and display area, and can vary dramatically in spatiotemporal availability; all these factors may influence and reinforce foraging decisions (2, 3). Worldwide declines in populations of bees and other pollinators have been linked to reduced diversity and abundance of host-plant species, likely placing bees under nutritional stress (4, 5). To develop strategic conservation protocols that preserve or restore foraging habitat that supports healthy pollinator populations, we must understand how bees forage in their environments to meet their nutritional needs. It is well established that solitary and social insects can forage selectively and regulate their intake of synthetic diets spanning a range of macronutrient nutritional qualities to reach their optimal, species-specific nutritional intake (6-8). Here we examine whether the generalist bumble bee species Bombus...

show abstract

Section: Discussioncontrasting

confidence: 45%

Macronutrient ratios in pollen shape bumble bee ( Bombus impatiens ) foraging strategies and floral preferences

Vaudo

Patch

Mortensen

et al. 2016

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

298

302

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Bees in controlled choice experiments have been found to be guided by the presence of previously experienced pollen odours (Hohmann ; Pernal & Currie ; Konzmann & Lunau ; Beekman, Preece & Schaerf ), preferring pollen‐containing samples that are rich in odour over odour‐poor surrogates, or learning the odour bouquets of different pollen species when rewarded with sucrose (von Aufsess ; Cook et al . ; Ruedenauer, Spaethe & Leonhardt ).…”

Section: The Importance Of Olfactory Cuesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Assessment of pollen rewards by foraging bees

2016

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Summary1. The removal of pollen by flower-visiting insects is costly to plants, not only in terms of production, but also via lost reproductive potential. Modern angiosperms have evolved various reward strategies to limit these costs, yet many plant species still offer pollen as a sole or major reward for pollinating insects. 2. The benefits plants gain by offering pollen as a reward for pollinating are defined by the behaviour of their pollinators, some of which feed on the pollen at the flower, while others collect pollen to provision offspring. 3. We explore how pollen impacts on the behaviour and foraging decisions of pollen-collecting bees, drawing comparisons with what is known for nectar rewards. This question is of particular interest since foraging bees typically do not eat pollen during collection, meaning the sensory pathways involved in evaluating this resource are not immediately obvious. 4. Previous research has focussed on whether foraging bees can determine the quality of pollen sources offered by different plant species, and attempted to infer the mechanisms underpinning such evaluations, mainly through observations of collection preferences in the field 5. More recently experimental research has started to ask whether pollen itself can mediate the detection of, and learning about, pollen sources and associated floral cues. 6. We review advancements in the understanding of how bees forage for pollen and respond to variation in pollen quality, and discuss future directions for studying how this ancestral floral food reward shapes the behaviour of pollinating insects.

show abstract

“…Optimizing the composition of collected pollen species (maximizing the amounts of the most limiting elements and minimizing the costs of food collection) may represent a strategy employed by bees to overcome stoichiometric mismatches. Bees favor certain species of pollen, and the floral preference might be related to the nutritional quality of the pollen [98][99][100][101][110][111][112][113][114][115][116][117][118][119][120][121]. These preferences do not appear to be related to the total protein content of the pollen [101,115,117,118].…”

Section: Stoichiometric Mismatches May Affect Life-history Traits Of mentioning

confidence: 99%

Plant–insect interactions: the role of ecological stoichiometry

Filipiak

Weiner

2017

Acta Agrobot

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The energy budget of organisms is a primary factor used to generate hypotheses in ecosystem ecology and evolutionary theory. Therefore, previous studies have focused on the energy costs and benefits of adaptations, the efficiency of energy acquisition and investment, and energy budget limitations. The maintenance of stoichiometric balance is equally important because inconsistency between the chemical composition of the consumer's tissues and that of its food sources strongly affects the major life-history traits of the consumer and may influence the consumer's fitness and shape plant-herbivore interactions. In this short review, the framework of ecological stoichiometry is introduced, focusing on plant-insect interactions in terrestrial ecosystems. The use of the trophic stoichiometric ratio (TSR) index is presented as a useful tool for indicating the chemical elements that are scarce in food and have the potential to limit the growth and development of herbivores, thereby influencing plant -herbivorous insect interactions. As an example, the elemental composition and stoichiometry of a pollen consumer (mason bee Osmia bicornis) and its preferred pollen are compared. The growth and development of O. bicornis may be colimited by the scarcity of K, Na, and N in pollen, whereas the development of the cocoon might be colimited by the scarcity of P, Mg, K, Na, Zn, Ca, and N. A literature review of the elemental composition of pollen shows high taxonomical variability in the concentrations of bee-limiting elements. The optimized collection of pollen species based on the elemental composition may represent a strategy used by bees to overcome stoichiometric mismatches, influencing their interactions with plants. It is concluded that the dependence of life-history traits on food stoichiometry should be considered when discussing life history evolution and plant-herbivore interactions. The TSR index may serve as a convenient and powerful tool in studies investigating plant-insect interactions.

show abstract

Hungry for quality—individual bumblebees forage flexibly to collect high-quality pollen

Cited by 73 publications

References 52 publications

Macronutrient ratios in pollen shape bumble bee ( Bombus impatiens ) foraging strategies and floral preferences

Macronutrient ratios in pollen shape bumble bee ( Bombus impatiens ) foraging strategies and floral preferences

Assessment of pollen rewards by foraging bees

Plant–insect interactions: the role of ecological stoichiometry

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About