Department of Biology, University of Massachusetts Amherst, Amherst, MA 01003, USA.
Graduate Program in Organismic and Evolutionary Biology, University of Massachusetts Amherst, Amherst, MA 01003, USA.
Environ Entomol. 2023 Jun 16;52(3):480-490. doi: 10.1093/ee/nvad021.
Foraging preferences are known to differ among bee taxa, and can also differ between male and female bees of the same species. Similarly, bees can prefer a specific flower sex, particularly if only one sex provides pollen. Such variation in foraging preferences could lead to divergent bee communities visiting different flower sexes of a plant species. We sampled bees visiting sunflowers to characterize bee species richness, abundance, and sex ratios on pollen-fertile and pollen-sterile cultivars. We asked whether female or male bees were more abundant on sunflowers, whether female bees were more abundant on pollen-fertile or pollen-sterile cultivars, and whether pollen presence predicted the sex of sampled bees. We further asked whether the bee community differed between pollen-fertile and pollen-sterile cultivars. Females of most bee species were more abundant on sunflowers compared to males, and females were usually more abundant on pollen-fertile cultivars. In three bee species, pollen presence was predictive of a bee's sex, with females more abundant on pollen-fertile cultivars than males. Further, the bee community differed significantly between pollen-fertile and pollen-sterile cultivars, with two bee species functioning as indicators for pollen-fertile sunflowers. Our results demonstrate that a bee's sex shapes foraging associations on sunflowers and influences abundance between pollen-fertile and pollen-sterile cultivars, and that pollen-fertile and pollen-sterile cultivars are visited by different bee communities. Bee sexes and flower pollen presence may be under-appreciated factors shaping pollination services in both agricultural and natural ecosystems, and could be important considerations for pollination of crops with pollen-fertile and pollen-sterile flowers.
觅食偏好已知在蜜蜂分类群之间存在差异，并且在同一物种的雄性和雌性蜜蜂之间也可能存在差异。同样，蜜蜂可能更喜欢特定的花性，特别是如果只有一种性别提供花粉。觅食偏好的这种变化可能导致访问植物物种不同花性的蜜蜂群落产生分歧。我们对访问向日葵的蜜蜂进行了采样，以描述花粉肥沃和花粉不育品种上的蜜蜂物种丰富度、丰度和性别比例。我们询问了雌性或雄性蜜蜂在向日葵上更丰富，雌性蜜蜂在花粉肥沃或花粉不育品种上更丰富，以及花粉的存在是否预测了采样蜜蜂的性别。我们进一步询问了花粉肥沃和花粉不育品种之间的蜜蜂群落是否存在差异。与雄性相比，大多数蜜蜂物种的雌性在向日葵上更为丰富，并且雌性通常在花粉肥沃的品种上更为丰富。在三个蜜蜂物种中，花粉的存在可以预测蜜蜂的性别，与雄性相比，雌性在花粉肥沃的品种上更为丰富。此外，花粉肥沃和花粉不育品种之间的蜜蜂群落存在显著差异，有两种蜜蜂物种作为花粉肥沃向日葵的指示物种。我们的结果表明，蜜蜂的性别塑造了在向日葵上的觅食关系，并影响了花粉肥沃和花粉不育品种之间的丰度，并且花粉肥沃和花粉不育品种被不同的蜜蜂群落访问。蜜蜂性别和花花粉的存在可能是农业和自然生态系统中授粉服务的被低估的因素，并且对于具有花粉肥沃和花粉不育花朵的作物授粉可能是重要的考虑因素。
