Nectar Sugar Limits Larval Growth of Solitary Bees (Hymenoptera: Megachilidae)

Burkle, Laura A.; Irwin, Rebecca E.

doi:10.1603/022.038.0441

Cited by 40 publications

(40 citation statements)

References 77 publications

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“…Altered floral scent emission or volatilization at higher temperatures could affect the detectability of flowers, particularly for pollinating insects, such as moths, that rely on long-distance cues to locate floral resources (Kevan and Baker, 1983; Yuan et al, 2009). Certainly, altered nectar production and composition could have both immediate effects on pollinator activity and energetics (Kudo and Harder, 2005) and longer-term consequences for pollinator fitness (Burkle and Irwin, 2009), perhaps especially for those insects, such as some lepidopterans and wasps, that rely on nectar for amino acids as well as for sugars (Kevan and Baker, 1983). Similarly, decreased pollen production is likely to affect the reproductive success of many bees, which may need to collect pollen from a large number of plants to successfully rear their offspring (Muller et al, 2006).…”

Section: Physiological Effects On Flowering Plants and Potential Comentioning

confidence: 99%

Physiological effects of climate warming on flowering plants and insect pollinators and potential consequences for their interactions

2013

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Growing concern about the influence of climate change on flowering plants, pollinators, and the mutualistic interactions between them has led to a recent surge in research. Much of this research has addressed the consequences of warming for phenological and distributional shifts. In contrast, relatively little is known about the physiological responses of plants and insect pollinators to climate warming and, in particular, how these responses might affect plant-pollinator interactions. Here, we summarize the direct physiological effects of temperature on flowering plants and pollinating insects to highlight ways in which plant and pollinator responses could affect floral resources for pollinators, and pollination success for plants, respectively. We also consider the overall effects of these responses on plant-pollinator interaction networks. Plant responses to warming, which include altered flower, nectar, and pollen production, could modify floral resource availability and reproductive output of pollinating insects. Similarly, pollinator responses, such as altered foraging activity, body size, and life span, could affect patterns of pollen flow and pollination success of flowering plants. As a result, network structure could be altered as interactions are gained and lost, weakened and strengthened, even without the gain or loss of species or temporal overlap. Future research that addresses not only how plant and pollinator physiology are affected by warming but also how responses scale up to affect interactions and networks should allow us to better understand and predict the effects of climate change on this important ecosystem service

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Section: Physiological Effects On Flowering Plants and Potential Comentioning

confidence: 99%

Physiological effects of climate warming on flowering plants and insect pollinators and potential consequences for their interactions

2013

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“…Sugar is the principal ingredient and the major source of energy in nectar (Nicolson & Thornburg, ; Burkle & Irwin, ; Seeley, ; Nicolson, ). A high nectar sugar concentration, which is a measure of nectar quality, has direct positive effect on solitary bee and honeybee offspring fitness (Burkle & Irwin, ; Kaftanoglu et al, ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Forage quality and quantity affect red mason bees and honeybees differently in flowers of strawberry varieties

Ahrenfeldt

Sigsgaard

Hansted

et al. 2019

Entomologia Exp Applicata

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Nectar is a vital source of energy for bees and other pollinators and pollen represents the only source of protein in the diet of bees. Nectar and pollen quality and quantity can therefore affect foraging choices. Strawberry, Fragaria × ananassa (Rosaceae), is a flowering crop that requires insect pollination for the berries to develop optimally. The solitary red mason bee, Osmia bicornis L. (Hymenoptera: Megachilidae), occurs naturally but like the eusocial western honeybee, Apis mellifera mellifera L. (Hymenoptera: Apidae), it is also a commercially reared pollinator used in strawberry production. We hypothesized that strawberry nectar and pollen quality would affect the foraging choice of these two types of bees. In this study nectar and pollen quality is represented by various levels of sugar and protein content, respectively, as well as the number of open strawberry flowers in the experimental field, would affect the foraging choice of these two types of bees. Consistent with previous studies, we found significant and major differences between strawberry varieties in proportions of sucrose in the nectar sugar and in pollen viability – a proxy for pollen protein content. All measured parameters had a significant effect on red mason bee visitation frequency. Contrary to expectations, honeybee foraging behavior was only affected by the number of open flowers and not by any of the quality parameters measured. Our findings indicate that red mason bees were capable of assessing nectar and pollen quality and prioritize accordingly. The pattern observed indicates that individual red mason bees changed foraging focus between strawberry varieties depending on whether nectar or pollen was collected. Our results suggest that targeted breeding of varieties toward high levels of nectar sugar and sucrose concentrations and high pollen protein content may increase pollination success from red mason bees and possibly other solitary bees.

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“…This ranking was consistent with the sugar content of the five varieties in Table , but not with the time of maturity (Lu & Jia, ). Burkle & Irwin () also reported that the performance of solitary bees was related to the sugar content of nectar. In this paper, apples were picked on the same day from the same area so it is hard to know how much these data can be extrapolated to other times and regions.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 98%

Methods to measure performance of Grapholitha molesta on apples of five varieties

Wang

Kong

Zhao

et al. 2018

Entomologia Exp Applicata

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Host plants will affect the performance and population dynamics of the polyphagous insect pest Grapholitha molesta (Busck) (Lepidoptera: Tortricidae). Cultivar‐level variability needs to be considered in assessing the performance of G. molesta. We evaluated the fitness of G. molesta on five apple varieties in the laboratory by placing eggs on apples and observing their performance including survival, development, and fecundity of the adult insect. Our results demonstrated differences between indices such as larval duration, pupal weight, egg production, length of tunnel, and exiting rate of larvae, which gave similar host rankings. Variety Danxia was less suitable than Jinqing and Shuohong, and more suitable than Empire and Jinxing. However, other indices such as pupal duration, total pre‐oviposition time, and the estimated population parameters resulted in a different host ranking. We calculated weighted fitness scores to overcome the problem of inconsistent rankings. Empire changed from being the second highest ranking variety based on all population parameters to the second lowest using weighted fitness scores. The difference in ranking observed between apple varieties demonstrates the care needed in predicting population performance in the field using single traits.

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Nectar Sugar Limits Larval Growth of Solitary Bees (Hymenoptera: Megachilidae)

Cited by 40 publications

References 77 publications

Physiological effects of climate warming on flowering plants and insect pollinators and potential consequences for their interactions

Physiological effects of climate warming on flowering plants and insect pollinators and potential consequences for their interactions

Forage quality and quantity affect red mason bees and honeybees differently in flowers of strawberry varieties

Methods to measure performance of Grapholitha molesta on apples of five varieties

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