Rising temperatures advance the main flight period of Bombus bumblebees in agricultural landscapes of the Central European Plain

Pawlikowski, T.; Sparks, Tim H.; Olszewski, Piotr; Pawlikowski, Krzysztof; Rutkowski, Lucjan; Jakubowski, Rafał

doi:10.1007/s13592-020-00750-9

Cited by 20 publications

(16 citation statements)

References 31 publications

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“…For other bumblebee species, limitations in habitat due to climate change have been proven to result in a decrease of abundance or even extinctions [47,48]. Main flight time of four important bumblebee species in Europe extends with higher temperatures [49]. Kammerer et al [50] studied wild-bee abundance in the Mid-Atlantic United States.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A biophysical approach to assess weather impacts on honey bee colony winter mortality

2021

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The western honey bee ( Apis mellifera ) is one of the most important insects kept by humans, but high colony losses are reported around the world. While the effects of general climatic conditions on colony winter mortality were already demonstrated, no study has investigated specific weather conditions linked to biophysical processes governing colony vitality. Here, we quantify the comparative relevance of four such processes that co-determine the colonies' fitness for wintering during the annual hive management cycle, using a 10-year dataset of winter colony mortality in Austria that includes 266 378 bee colonies. We formulate four process-based hypotheses for wintering success and operationalize them with weather indicators. The empirical data is used to fit simple and multiple linear regression models on different geographical scales. The results show that approximately 20% of winter mortality variability can be explained by the analysed weather conditions, and that it is most sensitive to the duration of extreme cold spells in mid and late winter. Our approach shows the potential of developing weather indicators based on biophysical processes and discusses the way forward for applying them in climate change studies.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A biophysical approach to assess weather impacts on honey bee colony winter mortality

2021

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“…GDD is the accumulation of temperature above a certain base temperature for each calendar day, making it a good indicator to account for both spatial and temporal variation in temperature, including the lower developmental threshold in which plant growth development and flowering are possible. Since bees are sensitive to temperature change (Martinet et al, 2020 ; Pawlikowski et al, 2020 ), GDD has a great potential to predict insect phenology, that is, the development of insects (Cayton et al, 2015 ).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A model of wild bee populations accounting for spatial heterogeneity and climate‐induced temporal variability of food resources at the landscape level

Blasi

Clough

Jönsson

et al. 2022

Ecology and Evolution

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The viability of wild bee populations and the pollination services that they provide are driven by the availability of food resources during their activity period and within the surroundings of their nesting sites. Changes in climate and land use influence the availability of these resources and are major threats to declining bee populations. Because wild bees may be vulnerable to interactions between these threats, spatially explicit models of population dynamics that capture how bee populations jointly respond to land use at a landscape scale and weather are needed. Here, we developed a spatially and temporally explicit theoretical model of wild bee populations aiming for a middle ground between the existing mapping of visitation rates using foraging equations and more refined agent‐based modeling. The model is developed for Bombus sp. and captures within‐season colony dynamics. The model describes mechanistically foraging at the colony level and temporal population dynamics for an average colony at the landscape level. Stages in population dynamics are temperature‐dependent triggered by a theoretical generalized seasonal progression, which can be informed by growing degree days. The purpose of the LandscapePhenoBee model is to evaluate the impact of system changes and within‐season variability in resources on bee population sizes and crop visitation rates. In a simulation study, we used the model to evaluate the impact of the shortage of food resources in the landscape arising from extreme drought events in different types of landscapes (ranging from different proportions of semi‐natural habitats and early and late flowering crops) on bumblebee populations.

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“…No significant impact of the temperature on the total number of individuals (p = 0.96), neither on the number of males (p = 0.24) or workers (p = 0.34) The number of queens produced was significantly higher at 33°C (p = 0.001). (Duchenne et al 2020), notably bumblebee queens (Pawlikowski et al 2020). If our results in controlled conditions can be translated the field, and if the queen production of social species also advances, we may observe an increase of voltinism (i.e.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Higher developmental temperature increases queen production and decreases worker body size in the bumblebee Bombus terrestris

Guiraud¹,

Cariou²,

Henrion³

et al. 2021

JHR

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Climate change and increasing average temperatures are now affecting most ecosystems. Social insects such as bumblebees are especially impacted because these changes create spatial, temporal and morphological mismatches that could impede their ability to find food resources and mate. However, few studies have assessed how the colony and life cycle are affected when temperatures rise above optimal rearing temperature. It has become imperative to understand how heat stress affects the life history traits of insect pollinators as well as how changes in life history interact with other traits like morphology. For example, a decrease in the number of foraging workers could be balanced by producing larger workers, able to forage at longer distances and gather more resources. Here, we investigated the impact of temperature on colony production and body size in the bumblebee Bombus terrestris. Colonies were exposed to two temperatures: 25 °C, which is around the optimal temperature for larval development and 33 °C, which is slightly above the set-point that is considered stressful for bumblebees. Although the production of males and workers wasn’t significantly affected by these different temperatures, queen production and reproductive investment were much higher for colonies placed in 33 °C than in 25 °C. We also found that, in agreement with the temperature-size rule, workers were significantly smaller in the higher temperature. The decrease in worker body size could affect resource collection and pollination if their foraging distance and the quantity of food they are taking back to the colony decreases. While in our controlled conditions the bumblebees were fed ad libitum, the decrease of resource collection in field conditions could prevent colonies from producing as many queens as in our study. Together with the decrease of worker body size, our results suggest that elevated temperatures could ultimately have a negative impact on bumblebee colony fitness. Indeed, smaller workers are known to have weaker flight performance which could affect foraging performance and consequently colony development.

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Rising temperatures advance the main flight period of Bombus bumblebees in agricultural landscapes of the Central European Plain

Cited by 20 publications

References 31 publications

A biophysical approach to assess weather impacts on honey bee colony winter mortality

A biophysical approach to assess weather impacts on honey bee colony winter mortality

A model of wild bee populations accounting for spatial heterogeneity and climate‐induced temporal variability of food resources at the landscape level

Higher developmental temperature increases queen production and decreases worker body size in the bumblebee Bombus terrestris

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Rising temperatures advance the main flight period of Bombus bumblebees in agricultural landscapes of the Central European Plain

Cited by 20 publications

References 31 publications

A biophysical approach to assess weather impacts on honey bee colony winter mortality

A biophysical approach to assess weather impacts on honey bee colony winter mortality

A model of wild bee populations accounting for spatial heterogeneity and climate‐induced temporal variability of food resources at the landscape level

﻿Higher developmental temperature increases queen production and decreases worker body size in the bumblebee Bombus terrestris

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Higher developmental temperature increases queen production and decreases worker body size in the bumblebee Bombus terrestris