The Impacts of Early-Life Experience on Bee Phenotypes and Fitness

Abstract

Across diverse animal species, early-life experiences have lifelong impacts on a variety of traits. The scope of these impacts, their implications, and the mechanisms that drive these effects are central research foci for a variety of disciplines in biology, from ecology and evolution to molecular biology and neuroscience. Here we review the role of early-life in shaping adult phenotypes and fitness in bees, emphasizing the possibility that bees are ideal species to investigate the causes and consequences of variation in early-life experience at both individual and population levels. Bee early-life includes the larval and pupal stages, critical time periods during which factors like food availability, maternal care, and temperature set the phenotypic trajectory for an individual's lifetime. We discuss how some common traits impacted by these experiences, including development rate and adult body size, influence fitness at the individual level, with possible ramifications at the population level. Finally, we review ways in which human alterations to the landscape may impact bee populations through early-life effects. This review highlights aspects of bees’ natural history and behavioral ecology that warrant further investigation with the goal of developing a better understanding of the ways in which environmental disturbances threaten these vulnerable species.

Bee-Friendly Native Seed Mixtures for the Greening of Solar Parks

“…In particular, oligolectic wild bees depend on certain plant families or species [82]. Furthermore, it is important to consider not only the nutritional needs of adult species but also those of juvenile stages when composing seed mixtures [84,85]. Seed mixtures should be designed to include species with a long flowering period, which flower at different times throughout the season to ensure continuous resource availability, especially when feeding resources in adjacent habitats become limited [8,83,86,87].…”

“…Grass species are excluded from the index, as their pollen seems to have only minor importance for pollinating insects [47]. Nectar is the main food source for adult bees, whereas pollen is the main food source for bee larvae [85]. The pollen and nectar values are calculated by summing the contributions of the species included in the seed mixture.…”

“…Numerous other aspects must be considered for a pollinator-friendly design of solar parks. In addition to adapted management, the requirements of the different roles and life stages of various non-bee pollinators [84,85,89,107,108] must also be taken into account. Besides wild bees, many other pollinator insects such as Diptera and Lepidoptera make important contributions to the regulating ecosystem service of "pollination" [89,109,110].…”