Pollen diets and niche overlap of honey bees and native bees in protected areas

Elliott, Brittany B.; Wilson, Rachele; Shapcott, Alison; Keller, Alexander; Newis, Ryan; Cannizzaro, Chris; Burwell, Chris J.; Smith, Tobias J.; Leonhardt, Sara D.; Kämper, Wiebke; Wallace, Helen M.

doi:10.1016/j.baae.2020.12.002

Cited by 33 publications

(28 citation statements)

References 70 publications

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“…protective effect of vitellogenin against oxidative stress), as observed with the high concentration of sulfoxaflor. This nutritional modulation may cause a large range of pesticide responses in the field, given that the abundance and composition of honeybee pollen diets can be highly variable across landscapes and seasons [25,[105][106][107][108][109][110]. A decline in resource availability and biodiversity in agro-ecosystems [111] might, therefore, impair the bee's ability to deal with pesticides [112], giving another strong argument for the restoration of floral resource abundance and diversity in such habitats (introduction of extensive grasslands and flower strips, protection of semi-natural habitats) [113,114].…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Pollen nutrition fosters honeybee tolerance to pesticides

et al. 2021

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A reduction in floral resource abundance and diversity is generally observed in agro-ecosystems, along with widespread exposure to pesticides. Therefore, a better understanding on how the availability and quality of pollen diets can modulate honeybee sensitivity to pesticides is required. For that purpose, we evaluated the toxicity of acute exposure and chronic exposures to field realistic and higher concentrations of azoxystrobin (fungicide) and sulfoxaflor (insecticide) in honeybees provided with pollen diets of differing qualities (named S and BQ pollens). We found that pollen intake reduced the toxicity of the acute doses of pesticides. Contrary to azoxystrobin, chronic exposures to sulfoxaflor increased by 1.5- to 12-fold bee mortality, which was reduced by pollen intake. Most importantly, the risk of death upon exposure to a high concentration of sulfoxaflor was significantly lower for the S pollen diet when compared with the BQ pollen diet. This reduced pesticide toxicity was associated with a higher gene expression of vitellogenin, a glycoprotein that promotes bee longevity, a faster sulfoxaflor metabolization and a lower concentration of the phytochemical p -coumaric acid, known to upregulate detoxification enzymes. Thus, our study revealed that pollen quality can influence the ability of bees to metabolize pesticides and withstand their detrimental effects, providing another strong argument for the restoration of suitable foraging habitat.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Pollen nutrition fosters honeybee tolerance to pesticides

et al. 2021

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“…Another advantage of pollen-based methods, and an essential factor to be considered in the study design, is the scalability of the samples that can be used to infer and contrast preferences of individual foragers (Casanelles-Abella et al, 2021;Elliott et al, 2020;Piko et al, 2021), and hive, colony, nest or species level assessments (Danner, Keller, Härtel, & Steffan-Dewenter, 2017;Nürnberger, Keller, Härtel, & Steffan-Dewenter, 2019;Sickel et al, 2015). Individual-level assessments allow researchers to address potential intraspecific variation by having snapshots of foraging and immediate responses to spatiotemporal or anthropogenic changes (Piko et al, 2021).…”

Section: Current and Potential Applications Of Pollen Dna Metabarcoding And Related Methods In Global Change Ecologymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Longer-term samples provide comprehensive insights into the complete foraging spectrum and species' dietary niche, co-evolution and long-term responses to changes (Kaluza et al, 2017;Vaudo, Biddinger, Sickel, Keller, & Lopez-Uribe, 2020;Wilson et al, 2021). Resource partitioning and specialisation can be analysed throughout the entire network from the community to the individual (Brosi, 2016;Elliott et al, 2020;Lucas, Bodger, Brosi, Ford, Forman, Greig, Hegarty, Jones, et al, 2018). In addition, historical samples can be used as an input (e.g., from museum specimens or honey samples), which allows a direct comparison of foraging changes through extended time periods (Gous et al, 2019;Jones, Brennan, et al, 2021).…”

Section: Current and Potential Applications Of Pollen Dna Metabarcoding And Related Methods In Global Change Ecologymentioning

confidence: 99%

Pollen DNA metabarcoding and related methods in global change ecology: prospects, challenges, and progress

Bell

Turo

Lowe

et al. 2022

Preprint

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Anthropogenic activities are leading to changes in the environment at global scales, and understanding these changes requires rapid, high-throughput methods of assessment. Pollen DNA metabarcoding and related methods provide advantages in throughput and efficiency over traditional methods, such as microscopic identification of pollen and visual observation of plant-pollinator interactions. Pollen DNA metabarcoding is currently being applied to assessments of plant-pollinator interactions and their responses to land-use change such as increased agricultural intensity and urbanisation, surveillance of ecosystem change, and monitoring of spatiotemporal distribution of allergenic pollen. In combination with historical specimens, pollen DNA metabarcoding can compare contemporary and past ecosystems. Current technical challenges with pollen DNA metabarcoding include the need to understand the relationship between sequence read and species abundance, develop methods for determining confidence limits for detection and taxonomic classification, increase method standardisation, and improve of gaps in reference databases. Future research expanding the method to intraspecific identification, analysis of DNA in ancient pollen samples, and increased use of museum and herbarium specimens could open further avenues for research. Ongoing developments in sequencing technologies can accelerate progress towards these goals. Global ecological change is happening rapidly, and we anticipate that high-throughput methods such as pollen DNA metabarcoding are critical for assessing these changes and providing timely management recommendations to preserve biodiversity and the evolutionary and ecological processes that support it.

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“…As an alternative to morphological pollen identification, DNA metabarcoding has been shown to provide increased taxonomic resolution and it has been used successfully on bee-collected pollen ( Bänsch et al, 2020 ; Elliott et al, 2021 ; Gous et al, 2021 ; Richardson et al, 2019 ) as well as airborne pollen ( Banchi et al, 2020 ; Brennan et al, 2019 ; Campbell et al, 2020 ; Kraaijeveld et al, 2015 ; Uetake et al, 2021 ). For grasses (Poaceae) for example, a recent study has shown that pollen of a small subset of all species present in the UK is likely to have a disproportionate influence on human health ( Rowney et al, 2021 ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

DNA metabarcoding using nrITS2 provides highly qualitative and quantitative results for airborne pollen monitoring

Polling

Sin

Weger

et al. 2022

Science of The Total Environment

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Airborne pollen monitoring is of global socio-economic importance as it provides information on presence and prevalence of allergenic pollen in ambient air. Traditionally, this task has been performed by microscopic investigation, but novel techniques are being developed to automate this process. Among these, DNA metabarcoding has the highest potential of increasing the taxonomic resolution, but uncertainty exists about whether the results can be used to quantify pollen abundance. In this study, it is shown that DNA metabarcoding using trn L and nrITS2 provides highly improved taxonomic resolution for pollen from aerobiological samples from the Netherlands. A total of 168 species from 143 genera and 56 plant families were detected, while using a microscope only 23 genera and 22 plant families were identified. NrITS2 produced almost double the number of OTUs and a much higher percentage of identifications to species level (80.1%) than trn L (27.6%). Furthermore, regressing relative read abundances against the relative abundances of microscopically obtained pollen concentrations showed a better correlation for nrITS2 (R 2 = 0.821) than for trn L (R 2 = 0.620). Using three target taxa commonly encountered in early spring and fall in the Netherlands ( Alnus sp., Cupressaceae/Taxaceae and Urticaceae) the nrITS2 results showed that all three taxa were dominated by one or two species ( Alnus glutinosa/incana , Taxus baccata and Urtica dioica ). Highly allergenic as well as artificial hybrid species were found using nrITS2 that could not be identified using trn L or microscopic investigation ( Alnus × spaethii , Cupressus arizonica , Parietaria spp.). Furthermore, perMANOVA analysis indicated spatiotemporal patterns in airborne pollen trends that could be more clearly distinguished for all taxa using nrITS2 rather than trn L. All results indicate that nrITS2 should be the preferred marker of choice for molecular airborne pollen monitoring.

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Pollen diets and niche overlap of honey bees and native bees in protected areas

Cited by 33 publications

References 70 publications

Pollen nutrition fosters honeybee tolerance to pesticides

Pollen nutrition fosters honeybee tolerance to pesticides

Pollen DNA metabarcoding and related methods in global change ecology: prospects, challenges, and progress

DNA metabarcoding using nrITS2 provides highly qualitative and quantitative results for airborne pollen monitoring

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