Krüger Jula-Klarissa, Buchholz Sascha, Schmitt Sophie, Blankenhaus Katharina, Pernat Nadja, Ott David, Hollens-Kuhr Hilke
Institute of Landscape Ecology, University of Münster Münster Germany.
Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research and Applied Ecology University of Münster Münster Germany.
Ecol Evol. 2024 Sep 2;14(9):e70256. doi: 10.1002/ece3.70256. eCollection 2024 Sep.
Movement performance of insects is an important measure of physiological fitness and is likely affected by novel stressors associated with global change. Reduced fitness can lead to smaller foraging areas and thus to decreasing abundance, diversity and nutritional quality, which could weaken insect populations and contribute to global insect decline. Here, we combined two different methods: An experimental semi-field design applying treatments in outdoor flight cages and a follow-up experiment conducted in the laboratory, in which different parameters of movement performance, such as (a) velocity, (b) duration and (c) distance of an insect's flight can be quantified. We kept colonies of the bumblebee under contrasting nutritional conditions and measured treatment effects on the movement performance of individuals. Monophagously fed bumblebees showed reduced movement performance than polyphagously fed bumblebees. In particular, they stopped more frequently during flight, flew shorter distances and showed less often flight duration of 20 min. Our results suggest that nutritional deficiency due to a monophagic diet leads to reduced flight performance, which can have dramatic negative consequences for bees. Reduced flight performance may result in decreased availability of host plants, which may negatively affect stress resistance of bees and brood provisioning, facilitating extinction of insects. Although food of great nutritional value is an important compensator for the negative effects of different novel stressor, such as pesticides, it is not much known how to compensate for the effects of nutritional stress, especially in landscapes dominated by monocultures. However, our experimental approach with semi-field and laboratory components has high potential for further studies investigating the impact of different stressors on the physiological fitness of insects but also body mass, or reproductive success and to find factors that may mitigate or even overcome the negative effect of stressors on insects.
昆虫的运动表现是生理适应性的重要衡量指标，可能会受到与全球变化相关的新应激源的影响。适应性降低会导致觅食区域变小，进而导致丰度、多样性和营养质量下降，这可能会削弱昆虫种群，并导致全球昆虫数量减少。在这里，我们结合了两种不同的方法：一种是在室外飞行笼中进行处理的实验性半田间设计，另一种是在实验室进行的后续实验，在该实验中，可以量化昆虫运动表现的不同参数，例如（a）速度、（b）持续时间和（c）飞行距离。我们在不同的营养条件下饲养大黄蜂蜂群，并测量处理对个体运动表现的影响。单食性喂养的大黄蜂比多食性喂养的大黄蜂运动表现更差。特别是，它们在飞行过程中更频繁地停下来，飞行距离更短，且很少出现持续20分钟的飞行时间。我们的结果表明，单食性饮食导致的营养缺乏会导致飞行性能下降，这可能会对蜜蜂产生巨大的负面影响。飞行性能下降可能会导致寄主植物的可利用性降低，这可能会对蜜蜂的抗逆性和育雏供应产生负面影响，从而加速昆虫灭绝。尽管高营养价值的食物是不同新应激源（如杀虫剂）负面影响的重要补偿因素，但人们对如何补偿营养应激的影响知之甚少，尤其是在以单一栽培为主的景观中。然而，我们的半田间和实验室相结合的实验方法在进一步研究不同应激源对昆虫生理适应性、体重、繁殖成功率的影响以及寻找可能减轻甚至克服应激源对昆虫负面影响的因素方面具有很大潜力。
