Colony-Level Variation in Pollen Collection and Foraging Preferences among Wild-Caught Bumble Bees (Hymenoptera: Apidae)

@inproceedings{Saifuddin2014ColonyLevelVI,
  title={Colony-Level Variation in Pollen Collection and Foraging Preferences among Wild-Caught Bumble Bees (Hymenoptera: Apidae)},
  author={Mustafa Saifuddin and Shalene Jha},
  booktitle={Environmental entomology},
  year={2014}
}
ABSTRACT Given that many pollinators have exhibited dramatic declines related to habitat destruction, an improved understanding of pollinator resource collection across human-altered landscapes is essential to conservation efforts. Despite the importance of bumble bees (Bombus spp.) as global pollinators, little is known regarding how pollen collection patterns vary between individuals, colonies, and landscapes. In this study, Vosnesensky bumble bees (Bombus vosnesenskii Radoszkowski) were… 
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16 Citations
Background Citations
5
Methods Citations
3
Results Citations
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16 Citations

Generalist Behavior Describes Pollen Foraging for Perceived Oligolectic and Polylectic Bees
TLDR
Investigating the pollen loads of two solitary, similarly sized, ground-nesting native bee species within the Apinae reveals generalist foraging and indicates that natural habitat availability significantly drives pollen load composition for both species.
Diversity of pollen sources used by managed honey bees in variegated landscapes
TLDR
The results provide important quantitative evidence that shows the amount and diversity of pollen used by honey bees in summer appears to be disproportionately met by human-modified landscapes; whereas, natural vegetation, despite its large extent and diversity, performs a lower-level role during this season.
Foraging strategies are maintained despite workforce reduction: A multidisciplinary survey on the pollen collected by a social pollinator
TLDR
A consistency in the bumblebees’ feeding strategies emerges in the short term despite the lowered workforce, suggesting that plant choice was influenced mainly by external factors such as the plant phenology.
Does a strong reduction of colony workforce affect the foraging strategy of a social pollinator?
TLDR
A consistency in the bumblebees’ feeding strategies emerges despite the lowered workforce, which questions the ability of social pollinators to adjust their foraging in the field.
Conservation Conundrum: At-risk Bumble Bees (Bombus spp.) Show Preference for Invasive Tufted Vetch (Vicia cracca) While Foraging in Protected Areas
TLDR
The results of a redundancy analysis show a difference in foraging between common and at-risk bumblebee species, which raises the question of how to preserve or provide forage for at- risk bumble bees, when they show an association with an invasive species often subject to control in protected areas.
Reap what you sow: local plant composition mediates bumblebee foraging patterns within urban garden landscapes
Although urban gardens are often celebrated for supporting bee abundance and diversity within cities, little is known about how garden management and urbanization levels influence bee foraging…
Determining the Minimum Number of Pollen Grains Needed for Accurate Honey Bee (Apis mellifera) Colony Pollen Pellet Analysis
TLDR
The goal of this project was to determine the minimum number of pollen grains that need to be counted to obtain an accurate floral taxonomic representation in a pollen pellet sample, and found no statistically significant differences in the number or proportion of floral taxa found.
Seasonality of bumblebee spillover between strawberry crops and adjacent pinewoods
In agricultural landscapes, differences in floral resources provided by crops compared with adjacent habitats promote the spillover of pollinators seeking to fulfil their feeding needs. These…
Assessing the role of dispersed floral resources for managed bees in providing supporting ecosystem services for crop pollination
TLDR
It is suggested that an integrated approach, including evidence from interview and landscape data, and fine-scale biological data is needed to study floral resources supporting managed honeybees.
High-severity wildfire limits available floral pollen quality and bumble bee nutrition compared to mixed-severity burns
TLDR
A previously unexplored pathway for how disturbances can influence native bee success via altering the nutritional landscape of pollen is examined, suggesting there are negative early successional impacts of high-severity wildfires on bumble bees and potentially on other pollen-dependent organisms via reductions in available pollen quality and nutrition.
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