Linking pollen foraging of megachilid bees to their nest bacterial microbiota

Voulgari-Kokota, Anna; Ankenbrand, Markus J.; Grimmer, Gudrun; Steffan‐Dewenter, Ingolf; Keller, Alexander

doi:10.1002/ece3.5599

Cited by 40 publications

(41 citation statements)

References 62 publications

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“…For example, in Germany, Apilactobacillus spp. are abundant in the pollen provisions of Megachile spp., at variable abundances in O. caerulescens provisions, at low abundance in Heriades truncorum provisions, and absent in O. bicornis and O. leaiana provisions [11,47]. In Texas (USA), we detected these same lactobacilli at high relative abundances in pollen provisions of Osmia chalybea, Osmia subfasciata and Megachile policaris [10].…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 60%

“…The small fragment of the 16S rRNA gene that we use for Illumina sequencing rarely allows species-level resolution of these bacteria, so we are unable to determine whether these taxa were sourced from the mud that the bees used to partition their brood cells or from the nectar they mixed into their pollen provisions. Acinetobacter, however, has been reported in association with pollen provisions of several different bee species [9][10][11][12], and it is therefore not surprising that it occurs at all study sites.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 82%

“…One conspicuous group of bacteria that are found in many pollen provision microbiomes [8][9][10][11][12][13]43,45] but were uncommon here are bacteria from the Apilactobacillus micheneri clade [46]. These bacteria have been found in the pollen provisions of other megachilid species in North America and Europe [10,11,43,47], but it is becoming clear that they are unevenly distributed across species [11,47]. For example, in Germany, Apilactobacillus spp.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 95%

“…McFrederick and Rehan [13] showed that the pollen provision microbiome of Ceratina calcarata co-varies with pollen usage across habitats, especially when considering fungi. Voulgari-Kokota et al [11] showed that bee species and foraging patterns drive the bacterial communities found in pollen provisions. Our findings add to the consensus of these other studies that floral transmission and pollen usage influence the composition of the pollen provision microbiome.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The observation that the same bacteria inhabit flowers, pollen provisions, and bee guts was subsequently verified [10]. Further studies then linked foraging to microbial transmission, which is more apparent when characterizing a network of plants, multiple bee species, and bacteria [11] than when studying a single population of bees [12]. When looking at multiple populations of one species across habitats, pollen usage and fungi co-vary more than pollen usage and bacteria [13].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 94%

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Diet Breadth Affects Bacterial Identity but Not Diversity in the Pollen Provisions of Closely Related Polylectic and Oligolectic Bees

Rothman

Cox-Foster²,

Andrikopoulos

et al. 2020

Insects

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Mounting evidence suggests that microbes found in the pollen provisions of wild and solitary bees are important drivers of larval development. As these microbes are also known to be transmitted via the environment, most likely from flowers, the diet breadth of a bee may affect the diversity and identity of the microbes that occur in its pollen provisions. Here, we tested the hypothesis that, due to the importance of floral transmission of microbes, diet breadth affects pollen provision microbial community composition. We collected pollen provisions at four sites from the polylectic bee Osmia lignaria and the oligolectic bee Osmia ribifloris. We used high-throughput sequencing of the bacterial 16S rRNA gene to characterize the bacteria found in these provisions. We found minimal overlap in the specific bacterial variants in pollen provisions across the host species, even when the bees were constrained to foraging from the same flowers in cages at one site. Similarly, there was minimal overlap in the specific bacterial variants across sites, even within the same host species. Together, these findings highlight the importance of environmental transmission and host specific sorting influenced by diet breadth for microbes found in pollen provisions. Future studies addressing the functional consequences of this filtering, along with tests for differences between more species of oligoletic and polylectic bees will provide rich insights into the microbial ecology of solitary bees.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 60%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 82%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 95%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 94%

See 3 more Smart Citations

Diet Breadth Affects Bacterial Identity but Not Diversity in the Pollen Provisions of Closely Related Polylectic and Oligolectic Bees

Rothman

Cox-Foster²,

Andrikopoulos

et al. 2020

Insects

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Exosymbiotic microbes within fermented pollen provisions are as important for the development of solitary bees as the pollen itself

Dharampal

Danforth

Steffan

2022

Ecology and Evolution

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Developing bees derive significant benefits from the microbes present within their guts and fermenting pollen provisions. External microbial symbionts (exosymbionts) associated with larval diets may be particularly important for solitary bees that suffer reduced fitness when denied microbe‐colonized pollen. To investigate whether this phenomenon is generalizable across foraging strategy, we examined the effects of exosymbiont presence/absence across two solitary bee species, a pollen specialist and generalist. Larvae from each species were reared on either microbe‐rich natural or microbe‐deficient sterilized pollen provisions allocated by a female forager belonging to their own species (conspecific‐sourced pollen) or that of another species (heterospecific‐sourced pollen). Our results reveal that the presence of pollen‐associated microbes was critical for the survival of both the generalist and specialist larvae, regardless of whether the pollen was sourced from a conspecific or heterospecific forager. Given the positive effects of exosymbiotic microbes for larval fitness, we then examined if the magnitude of this benefit varied based on whether the microbes were provisioned by a conspecific forager (the mother bee) or a heterospecific forager. In this second study, generalist larvae were reared only on microbe‐rich pollen provisions, but importantly, the sources (conspecific versus heterospecific) of the microbes and pollen were experimentally manipulated. Bee fitness metrics indicated that microbial and pollen sourcing both had significant impacts on larval performance, and the effect sizes of each were similar. Moreover, the effects of conspecific‐sourced microbes and conspecific‐sourced pollen were strongly positive, while that of heterospecific‐sourced microbes and heterospecific‐sourced pollen, strongly negative. Our findings imply that not only is the presence of exosymbionts critical for both specialist and generalist solitary bees, but more notably, that the composition of the specific microbial community within larval pollen provisions may be as critical for bee development as the composition of the pollen itself.

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