Bumblebee flower constancy and pollen diversity over time

Yourstone, Johanna and Varadarajan, Vidula and Olsson, Ola (2023) Bumblebee flower constancy and pollen diversity over time. Behavioral Ecology, 34 (4). pp. 602-612. ISSN 1045-2249

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Abstract

Bees often focus their foraging effort on a few or even a single flower species, even if other equally rewarding flower species are present. Although this phenomenon—called flower constancy—has been widely documented during single foraging trips, it is largely unknown if the behavior persists over longer time periods, especially under field conditions with large temporal variations of resources. We studied the pollen diet of individuals from nine different Bombus terrestris colonies for up to 6 weeks, to investigate flower constancy and pollen diversity of individuals and colonies, and how these change over time. We expected high degrees of flower constancy and foraging consistency over time, based on foraging theory and previous studies. Instead, we found that only 23% of the pollen foraging trips were flower constant. The fraction of constant pollen samples did not change over the study period, although repeatedly sampled individuals that were flower constant once often showed different preferences at other sampling occasions. The similarity of pollen composition in samples collected by the same individuals at different occasions dropped with time. This suggests that the flower preferences change in response to shifting floral resources. The average diversity of pollen from single foraging trips was around 2.5 pollen types, while the colony-level pollen diversity was about three times higher. How rapidly preferences change in response to shifting resources, and if this differs between and within bee species depending on factors such as size, should be the focus of future research.

Item Type:	Article
Authors:	Yourstone, Johanna and Varadarajan, Vidula and Olsson, Ola
Editors:	Editors Email ORCID Snell-Rood, Emilie UNSPECIFIED UNSPECIFIED
Document Language:	Language English
Subjects:	Natural Sciences > Life sciences; biology > Ecology Natural Sciences > Animals (Zoology)
Divisions:	Azim Premji University - Bengaluru > School of Arts and Sciences
Full Text Status:	Public
URI:	http://publications.azimpremjiuniversity.edu.in/id/eprint/7023
Publisher URL:	https://doi.org/10.1093/beheco%2Farad028

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